The Rich Roll Podcast - “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead” – How I Lost 100lbs, Rebooted My Life and Created a Movement

Episode Date: September 2, 2013

Today I sit down with the one and only Joe Cross, the man behind the wildly successful documentary film, Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead*. A few eerie parallels. Joe and I are almost exactly the same age, and we both decided to make radical life changes when we turned 40. So when I began the journey I chronicle in Finding Ultra*, Joe began the journey he chronicles in his movie. And now here we are, sitting across from each other, sharing our respective stories which essentially transpired concurrently. So what is Joe's story? 100 pounds overweight, loaded up on prescription meds and suffering from a debilitating autoimmune disease, Joe was at the end of his rope — a 310lb man whose gut was bigger than a beach ball and a path laid out before him that wouldn't end well. With one foot already in the grave, the other wasn't far behind. With doctors and conventional medicines unable to help long- term, Joe turned to the only option left, the body's ability to heal itself. He trades in the junk food and hits the road with juicer and film crew in tow, vowing only to drink fresh fruit and vegetable juice for the next 60 days and see what happens. Across 3,000 miles Joe has one goal in mind: to get off his pills and achieve a balanced lifestyle. While talking to more than 500 Americans about food, health and longevity, it's at a truck stop in Arizona where Joe meets a truck driver who suffers from the same rare condition. Phil Staples is morbidly obese weighing in at 429 lbs; a cheeseburger away from a heart-attack. As Joe is recovering his health, Phil begins his own epic journey to get well. Joe and I get into how Joe saved his life, helped create a populist movement around juicing and his plans for the future. Joe's passion for health & self-healing is infectious — I hope you are inspired by his message to take your own wellness to the next level! Enjoy! Rich

Welcome to episode 47 of the Rich Roll Podcast with Joe Cross. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, welcome to the show. Welcome to the Rich Roll Podcast. I am your host. I am Rich Roll. Thanks for stopping by. wellness warriors across the board, everybody from doctors, nutritionists, world-class athletes, and other people like myself who are out there kind of trying to spread the message, trying to get people to take responsibility and control of their wellness destiny.

I've been having a lot of fun doing it, and today we have a very excellent guest, very highly anticipated, well-known guy, Joe Cross stopped by to talk to me. Actually, I stopped by to talk to him. He was in town for a couple days. And I want to thank Dean Menta, my producer, for wrangling Joe and arranging a time to get Joe to sit down with me and have a chat about all the things that he's doing. If you don't know who Joe Cross is, then you've probably been living under a rock. He is the filmmaker behind the very successful documentary, Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. You may have heard me talk about it on the podcast before. This is a documentary that sort of started as a little bit of an underground thing

and really caught some viral momentum and has become quite the hit, quite the sensation, particularly online where it does very, very well netflix and itunes and all the other places where you can find and watch documentaries online i believe almost eight million people according to joe have seen this movie uh since it came out a couple years ago and uh it's pretty it's an interesting movie you know it's essentially chronicles joe's personal story which quite ironically happens to coincide with my personal journey. We're almost exactly the same age. And right around the time that I was fiddling around trying to repair my health and searching for a solution,

he was doing the same thing. And he just happened to chronicle his on film, and I ended up writing a book about it later. But we figured out that we were basically doing kind of the same thing around the same time, which is pretty, pretty amazing. We've taken different paths, but we're both kind of have similar messages and trying to find the best way to put it out there and help as many people as possible. But essentially, in a nutshell, what Joe did, he was extremely overweight. I believe he was like 310 pounds at his height, suffering from an autoimmune disease. He was on a whole number of pharmaceutical drugs, including the steroid prednisone, and he just had enough. It was time to change the way that he was living. He didn't like being on all these drugs. He

couldn't figure out how to get control of this disease. And, you know, he was headed towards essentially an early grave, extremely overweight. And what he did was quite extreme. He decided to go on a 60-day juice fast. In other words, all he did for 60 days straight was drink fruit and vegetable juice, followed by 90 days of eating only fruit and vegetables, and ultimately ended up losing 100 pounds, changed his life. He documented it in the film, and the film kind of chronicles the people that he meets along his journey, because he essentially drives cross-country, encountering people and talking to them about health, and there's a

particularly notable event that occurs in the film. If you haven't seen it, I won't spoil it, but he ends up meeting a trucker and affecting this guy's life in a very profound way. And there's an emotional journey that takes place with this guy, Phil, the trucker. So if you haven't seen the movie, please check it out. If nothing else, it will broaden your horizons and make you think about juicing fruits and vegetables in a little bit of a different light. So I'm really happy that Joe agreed to sit down with me. He's a very dynamic individual. He's a great talker. Essentially, all I had to do was run the mic and let him go. I barely felt like I had to ask him any questions because he's passionate about health and his message. So yeah, it was exciting to sit down with him because I've been familiar with him for

a long time. So anyway, before we get into the show, a couple quick notes. I will be in Toronto on September 7th as part of the Toronto VegFest, speaking on Saturday the 7th and also on a panel on the 8th. If you want to find out more, go to festival.veg.ca. I will also be in Tucson September 21st as part of an event sponsored or hosted by the Healthy You Network. If you want to find out more about that, go to healthyyounetwork.org. And then September 28th, I'm going to be in D.C., my hometown, for the D.C. VegFest. Go to dcvegfest.com to learn more about that.

I believe I'm speaking on that Saturday afternoon, which I think is the 28th. Yes, so I'll be in D.C. for a couple days. And then in mid-October, October 12th to the 19th, I'm going to be at Rancho La Puerta, which is a pretty amazing, awesome wellness-oriented spa resort in Mexico, but not too far from San Diego. So if you're looking for a little vacation or something to do that's fun and wellness-oriented in mid-October to get away. Check out Rancho La Puerta. You can find out more at rancholapuerta.com. I don't know if they're sold out for that week,

but essentially Julie and I are going to be going for the week. I'm going to be doing a couple workshops, giving my keynote talk, and essentially just hanging out with everybody who's staying there. So it should be a good time. Looking forward to that. If you want to support the Plant Powered Mission, we've got a couple ways to do it, and we love the support that we've been getting so far.

You can use the Amazon banner ad. Go to richroll.com. You'll see the Amazon banner ad on the podcast page or on the blog page. A little black, unassuming banner ad there, click that, take you to Amazon, buy whatever you're going to buy. And it will not cost you one cent extra, but Amazon will throw us a couple bucks. And that helps pay our expenses here and doesn't cost you anything. So it's a great and easy, simple way to continue to support what we're trying to do here.

You can also donate to the podcast. We have a donate button at richroll.com. Throw a couple bucks our way on a weekly basis, a monthly basis, a one-time basis, whatever amount you want. We love it. We appreciate it. For the plant-powered people out there looking to get more fruits and vegetables and healthy foods into your diet, there looking to get more fruits and vegetables and healthy foods into your diet julie and i are really proud to let you guys know that we recently released our first online course the ultimate guide to plant-based nutrition we love it three and a half hours of online video content broken

up into five to ten minute segments takes you through everything you need to know to get more plant powered into your life answers all the questions that you are wondering about, all the questions I get by email, blah, blah, blah. It's a great program. We're really proud of it. It's doing really well on MindBodyGreen. We're getting great feedback from the people that are doing it who are changing their lives. So if you're interested in that, check that out at MindBodyGreen.com. If you're interested in that, check that out at mindbodygreen.com.

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Hey, Joe, thanks for taking the time. Great to meet you, Rich. What are you doing here in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles? I'm actually sort of doing a couple of things, mainly in transit before I head to New York. And in New York, I'll be in transit before I head to Paris and so on and so on. I mean, these days I'm moving at light speed around the world, which is exciting on one side and challenging on the other.

But I've been doing that. So just on my way to New York, but also I've had a bunch of meetings here regarding the new movie and also regarding some TV projects that I'm working on and trying to spread the word of, you know, to inspire, educate, entertain people to lead a happy, healthy, longer life. I love it. I relate, man. The new movie comes out in the fall, right? Hang on. You guys always use seasons.

Seasons. Oh, fall, yes. Because I'm going between Sydney and Australia and New York a lot. Still jet lagged. Very confused. The new movie, you know, it's an interesting process making a movie. It's challenging because you head down a path and you're working on something and you're really excited about what you're working on and then you come

up with this really cool new thing you like. So you sort of shift and meander and that's kind of the business of movie making. So the timing on the new film is hopefully coming out in the U.S. spring. So that's like April of 2014. We were planning on getting it out before Christmas this year, but we've got some interesting angles we're exploring. And it just takes time, you know, to get interviews, to meet with people,

and it just takes a long time to make a movie. Do you have a title or can you tell us a little bit about what's it about or are you keeping that secret? No, I can say that if I knew exactly what it was about, I would tell you. So that's kind of how it goes. No, I know what I want to try and achieve with this film. with this film. You know, the first film was such a, you know,

I had no idea the impact the movie would have on so many people. I mean, I think we're up to 8 million people that have watched it now. And when I first made the movie or first had the concept of making the film, it was 2006 and YouTube was only one year old. So this idea of streaming and social media really, it was so much in its infancy that it really didn't exist in terms of the mind space of people. So I thought that this movie might be seen by maybe 10,000 people at yoga retreats on the top of Ubud in Bali or

somewhere in New Mexico or something. It was kind of like, I thought it was so out there drinking juice and doing that kind of thing that it wouldn't really be picked up by the mainstream. I really didn't think that. Once I started making the movie, I started to get more confident that particularly after meeting Phil that, hey, this is now more interesting. But I'm talking about back in the early days. And so going back to your question was, which is, what's it about? So I think that because the first one was such a breakout, I've got to be very careful that to try and do something that's going to have a similar impact is going to be very, very difficult. It's like you've had your moment kind of thing. So I'm just taking a few deep breaths and saying, right,

so what would people expect in a second film? And this is where some of the shifts and changes have. I think people want to know a little bit more about kind of like under the cover or under the bonnet, so to speak, of the car, the engine, as to some of the things that are going on inside the world of juicing and also to see the impact it's had on people and to learn from people and see how their experiences have propelled them forward and so others can possibly be more inspired as well. I'm not big on making movies that are just all talking heads,

you know, just a whole bunch of people talking. No, it still has to have a dramatic arc and a three-act structure, and they have to entertain, you know. I mean, it still has to adhere to the principles of storytelling, I think, to cross over and resonate with the mainstream audience, and that's what you did successfully. With Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, I mean, you had that happy accident of of meeting you know of uh of meeting phil and that kind of changed everything

and that's kind of the hallmark of every great documentary these sort of things that occur that you could have never predicted that really make the story you know it just elevates everything to the next level and you can't rely on that happening you just go out on you know in search of you know and being open to whatever's going to happen exactly well i think one of the big differences with this film i'm making now is that i've got a strategy in place where i know i'm making a third film as well so i've got this um plan to try my best to make a film every year for the next few years at least. I think there's lots of stories to tell and share about this space,

not only about when you're actually on a reboot but what about like life after the reboot and balance and how do you try and maintain because I actually think it's a lot easier to drop the weight and to get healthy in inverted commas, so to speak, for a short period of time. What's the real challenge is actually maintaining it. It's a real effort and it's a lot of work. So having the knowledge that you are making a third movie and a fourth movie allows the second movie a little bit more space to breathe.

So you can actually not try and put everything into one story. So that's kind of a – it's a luxury and a challenge at the same time. So we're kind of actually working on films two and three at the same time, so to speak, which is a really cool thing to be doing. So we've actually shot probably 150, 160 hours already. And I would say that we're probably even in terms of 50, 50 hours for both films. So the third film will be closer, hot on the heels of the second one. Right. And these are, I assume that you're sort of following people's personal journeys through this sort of process similar to the

first one, or is there something different that you're doing now? Something a little bit different. You know, to actually follow people's journeys is – I feel that's being done in our first film. I don't want to sort of just go out and repeat film number one. I think it's – what's interesting is that talking to people after their journeys and then you can get maybe more journeys. But, you know, to go and follow someone for 60 days, that's a lot of time, it's a lot of money,

it's a lot of effort. And, you know, how many can you do? You know, it's sort of a, it's a real challenge to think about that. So, you know, what's interesting, I think, is maybe meeting two or three people that have had incredible journeys and sort of go backwards and see what they were like and what they did and talk to friends and talk to family and then see what it was that made them change and what they're doing now to, to, to maintain it. Right. You know, you know, one of our, our reboot champions, he, you know, he got into, I think he's lost about 70, 75 pounds. And he, with his daughter, the trigger point for him was his daughter. They were at an amusement park and they got into the roller coaster and, you know, they've got to put the guard down. It's got to come down to lock you in to make sure that you can sit in the seat okay.

Well, because of his belly, the lock wouldn't come down. So he had to get out after standing in line with his daughter to get out of the ride. And that was the turning point for him. Right, like these little humiliations that push you over the edge. Yeah, so that's really powerful. And then the success of where he's at now. So it's that kind of finding those nuggets of gold and the journeys of people and sharing that.

And also some of the science behind this, you know, because I think in the first movie I didn't know what I was doing. I mean, some would argue I still don't know what I'm doing, and I would probably agree to that. So, you know, it's about trying to learn as much as I can about what is happening and what's working for people. Because I'm no expert.

I'm certainly, I don't view myself that way at all. Right. But we have, I mean, you know, there's a lot of overlap in our stories. I think we're about the same age. I'm about to turn 47. Yeah, I am 47. You're 47.

I was born in 66. Right, me too. Fire horse. And we both had these kind of enough is enough epiphany moments at age 40, like me right before I turned 40, you at 40. I mean, we're, you know, our stories kind of diverge. Certainly your health was in a little bit more of a dire circumstance than mine was at the time, but we both kind of kick-started this new path on juicing.

My juice cleanse was only seven days. And for me, that was enough to really reboot, to use your phrase, you know, everything that I was doing. And it was an incredibly powerful, you know, number of days where I felt like I could wipe the slate clean and start fresh. And so as much of a physical change as it entailed, it was also very much like a mental cleansing.

Like I've endured this seven days. I feel different now. Now I can go on a new trajectory. And one of the things that I found so striking in your film was as you were traveling across the country and you're meeting all these people, you would meet these people who are obviously, you know, in poor physical health. And you'd say, hey, I'm doing in a very friendly, nonjudgmental way, say, hey, I'm doing this juice thing. What would you think if I told you I had nothing but juice for the last 40 days or whatever?

what would you think if I told you I have had nothing but juice for the last 40 days or whatever? And they'd look at you curiously and then just sort of dismiss it as impossible or not something they're interested in doing. And you'd be like, okay, nice to meet you. You never judge them. And what I took from that is this gap between what needs to be done and where we're at in the sense that, you know, we have this obesity crisis and you lay out the statistics in the movie where, you know, this, the 60, 30, five, five percentages, 60% of the calories that, um, that we eat are coming from processed foods, uh, 40% from animal products, 30% from animal products, 5% from grains and 5% from fruits and vegetables. Right.

And, uh, and just to convince people to take that 5% and expand it is, is such a challenge. And yet, you know, people are suffering from diabetes and heart attack. I mean, even with Phil's brother who suffered a heart attack, he still, you could tell was struggling with this idea of embarking on this journey that literally had transformed his brother's life. So what we're dealing with here is really a psychology issue as much as anything else. Without question. And for me, I know just in my personal struggles, people say, oh, people don't change.

And I disagree with that. People do change. But people change when they're ready to change. And people change, but people change when they're ready to change and people change, usually people change when they're in pain or the pain becomes intolerable enough that it motivates them sufficiently to make a change. And for me, that's been the case.

And so I guess the challenge is how do you catalyze that change without people having to hit the kind of bottom that you had to hit or that I had to hit or that Phil had to hit? Yeah. And it's a very good question. And I think that what you're doing and what I'm doing and what there's so many others that are in our sort of shoes are trying to do is to find out ways. because I don't think there's one answer that fits all. I think, you know, just take America, for example. I think there's 316 million people in this country, right, 316 million. That means there's 316 million different diets, you know,

and different ways to go about being the best they can be. and different ways to go about being the best they can be. And so what I think is really important is not to be too preachy, not to be too like I've got all the answers and if you sit and listen to me, you know, I'll tell you what to do. And, you know, I'm very conscious of just the way I even speak, like saying, you know, I'd like to help people get healthy, you know, I'm very conscious of just the way I even speak, like saying, you know, I'd like to help people get healthy. You know, just using the words, I'm getting them. I'm actually not getting them.

I like to use the word, I'm inspiring people or I'm helping or, you know what I mean? They're subtle words, but they make a big difference in people the way they listen. They listen and, you know, quite often when I talk to crowds, when I do my demos or talks, I ask the question, you know, hands up those out there that really love being told what to do. You know, might be 1,000 people in the audience and no one puts their hand up and if they do, then, you know, they're joking. But, you know, no one really loves being told what to do. And then you ask the question, how many people love telling people what to do?

And of course, all the hands go up. Right. So there, it epitomizes the big challenge in the world today, is that people love giving orders. Not many people like taking them. And so I don't think that people in your shoes or mine that are fortunate enough to have a platform where people are listening to what we have to say. They're interested enough in what we've done that they want to listen to what we're saying. So I think it's really

important to be humble. I know you are about that. I've only just met you, but I can tell already that you're humble about that. I'm very conscious of that. And I think that the more humble you can be, the more understanding, the more forgiving, the more that you don't have the answers, the more that you are honest and transparent and share. I think that resonates with people because, you know, I've got a saying which I really have been using it for a long time. I don't even know where I learnt it from. I know someone told me but I've forgotten so I'd like to credit that person

but it's like the crowds are dumb, but people are really smart. And so when you're talking about things like this to people out there that are listening, every single one of them is really, really smart. Nobody needs your eye to come along and say, guess what? Fruits and vegetables, they've got all this powerful stuff. They're really good for you. I mean, they know that. People know this stuff. It's not about the knowing, it's about the doing.

Now, there are some things that they can learn and there's interesting stuff that can, I like to say, at least they can remember what they've forgotten. So to me, it's about storytelling. It's about leading by example. It's about making it fun and interesting. And it's not trying to give too much of this information over little bits, little nuggets that you can do little things that can make a big difference. And don't try and do everything all in one day, you know, because it's like you've got to – I mean, people talk to me about rebooting a lot. I mean, and what I've found and what we're going to talk about hopefully in movie number two or three, and this is like an example.

We're just trying to work out where it fits in. But, you know, I use the analogy of going to a swimming pool and people getting wet. You know how like you go to a pool and people who are getting out of the pool, they're all wet. Everyone's wet. You don't actually know how they got wet. Did they dive in or did they walk in?

At the end of the day, they got wet. I like to think about analogy of healthy to being wet. So people can get healthy. Did they dive in or did they walk in to their challenge or their journey of getting healthy? So like a reboot is really a dive in. It's like, right, I'm taking my 5% of plants to 100% for like you did seven days. I did 60 plus 90. I did like the whole nine yards. Some people, that's not going to work for them. Some people just can't go cold turkey or bang to that. Some people, that's what they want. So they're the dive-in people.

Others like to walk in and go slowly. So I think it's important to be aware that you've got all these different ways that people can achieve this. And so it's a good question you ask, but I feel that if we can come at it from these angles, that we can have the most impact. Right. I mean, I think that one of the things that you do and that I always try to bear in mind in the way that I speak to people and kind of deliver the message is, I'm not telling people what to do. I'm not even trying to give advice. I'm just sharing my experience. This is what I did. This is what happened to me. And you can draw your own inferences.

And I have my opinions around that, but it's not my place to impose them upon you. And I think you handled that very deftly in the movie by just saying, hey, this is what I'm doing. Like, come on this journey with me or not. It's cool. Like, I'm just cruising across the country. You know what I mean?

Like, want to juice out of my car? Well, because you have that attitude is why your podcast is so successful. That's because, I mean, if you and I get on the airwaves, start screaming out. Well, and I have people on that have a completely different dietary approach than I do. I mean, it's just like let's be adults and have a conversation. We can get along.

It's just a food choice. Exactly. We've all got to Exactly. It's just a food choice. Exactly. Exactly. We've all got to put energy in our body, Rich. I look at it this way. We are consumers of energy. That's what we are. Humans, we're massive consumers of energy, and we need energy to live.

If we don't get energy into our body, it's very simple. We will die. We are driven to be alive. That's what we want to do. Our three trillion cells, their whole mission is to stay alive. And so they need energy at that cellular level to convert, to stay alive. And when you really think about it, we've got air, we've got water, we've got food. They're our primary

three main energy sources. And you can talk about love and intimacy, and I believe in that, but I'm talking about physical things that go into your body. And when you then look at the air and the water and food, and you and I can't do much about our water and air. I mean, that's a big picture problem, right? That's macro stuff. But the food is the real micro one that we can actually have some kind of a say in. We can actually choose what sort of food energy we decide to feed our body. And I like to think about it very simply because I think people respond, I know I do, to simple things. I mean, so much confusion out there. And I think breaking it down to very simple philosophy or logic is helpful. And you've got three types of food you

can eat. You can eat plants, you can eat animal, you can eat processed food. And that's it. They're the three. And each one of those three groups, of course, you've got protein, carbohydrate, you've got sugars, you've got fats, you've got all that. But you know what? Let's leave that aside for the moment. Let's just look at the three categories, you know, plants, animal, processed.

And I like to think that, you know, they're the three to choose from, and I like to put the processed and the animal in what I call the fun part of town, and I like to put the plants in the essential part of town. Now, I'm sure for someone like you, the plants are the fun part of town, but let's just talk about the masses. We're going to fight now. No, no, no, no.

The masses of people that are out there. I understand what you're saying completely. So we all know what happens when you spend too much time in the fun part of town. You know what? It ain't fun anymore. Fun is defined by only doing it every now and then. Otherwise, it's not fun.

You do something all the time, it's not fun. So we have gone down this path where, as we talked about those numbers earlier, where it's actually 93%. I've learned a bit since the first movie. It's 93% of our energy on average for the average American Australian person in Great Britain, Western world, 93% of our energy is coming from what I'm calling the fun part of town. 7% is coming from the essential part of town.

And so when you look at that, you cannot ignore the biological laws of cause and effect, as Dr. Joel Fuhrman says in my film. You can't ignore that and you're going to have this epidemic of disease and unhappiness. And so I think laying that out and understanding that just on a base level for anybody to understand those three categories. And then it's up to you and the people out there, I believe, to decide what number do you want your plant intake to be? Do you want it to be from seven? If you're average, do you want to go to

10? Do you want to go to 15? Do you want to go to 40? Do you want to go to 100? It's up to you. Right. Well, I think there's a couple things. I mean, when you talk about spending too much time in the fun part of town, that begs the question of sort of moderation versus extreme behavior. And some would say that for you to go on this juice cleanse, this juice fast for 60 days plus the 90 that came after it, or for me to be 100% plant-based and go to these crazy endurance races, those are extreme behaviors. And I think, you know, well, they'd be right. Yeah. We just met, but I think we're on the, we are, we share a similar

wavelength where I'm attracted to that kind of challenge or, and, and I, I almost need that. Like I needed to do the juice fast to wipe the table clean and start fresh. And I need to challenge myself. I need to jump in with both feet. I need to do something extreme in order to alter my status quo and my behavior patterns. And when I jump in and do something like that that's outside of my comfort zone or scares me, that energizes me. And also there's a momentum that develops behind that. And I think a big part of this is momentum. And I think a big part of your message

in this whole reboot is about generating momentum. Because even if you do one day of juice fasting and then you got through it, then maybe you'll do a second one or you'll be more energized or enthusiastic or motivated to continue. But there are people who say, well, I'm not ready to dive in.

I just wanna dip my toe in and start to get wet that way. I don't necessarily relate to those people, but I agree with you that they exist and that there needs to be a path for them as well. I think it's harder to create momentum behind what they're trying to do if they're just – they're sort of one foot in and one foot out. I agree with that. And I find that those are the people who most often come to me and say, well, what's wrong with moderation? What's wrong with moderation?

And I'm interested in kind of how you respond to that. I'm sure you get that question all the time. I mean, for me, I say, well, what are we talking about here? Because I think we've skewed what moderation really is. Like, tell me what you're eating, and we'll see if it's truly moderate or not. That's right. And I'm willing to bet, looking at you, unhealthy person, that what you're doing probably isn't moderation. Yeah, no, I understand exactly and relate to it.

So, you know, I think first of all, I think, and I know that you feel this way because you've sort of hinted it already in our chat, that just because you do something extreme doesn't make you better or worse. It just makes you different. And that's a key, right? Just to understand our differences amongst ourselves is important because I think what can sort of tend to happen is people feel

that because someone does something to an extreme, that they're trying to be better than other people, or they're trying to prove a point, or it's about ego as opposed to being about spirit. So let's assume that everything we're talking about is coming from the angle of spirit. And if that's the case, then just today, take America today, there is going to be someone that's the oldest person in America today, and there's going to be someone who's just born. And then there's going to be a whole bunch of ages, and we're going to have this beautiful Gasconian bell curve that I used to spend so much time on when I was back in the financial markets in my previous life. And the normalized distribution of any sample set of data shows that there are things on the extreme, the oldest person,

the youngest person. You can do it with weight. You can do it with height. You can do it with anything. And you can also do it with your attitude to life. And so you're going to get this medium or standard deviation one, which is the most of what's average or what's balanced or what's the middle. Now, when it comes to what we're eating and that lifestyle, I couldn't agree with you more that it is so skewed, so far from really if you were to get a lot of great minds from all walks of life, be it from the medical world, be it from the scientific world, be it from spiritual world, and you had a sort of a consensus of what is the best thing for people to eat. There's no question that what we're eating on average is so far skewed to an extreme that having 93% of our energy coming from plant and process, it's really second, third, and fourth hand energy. I mean, we're not getting the energy

directly from where it's produced. Low on the food chain. Yeah, yeah, very much so. So I think that when I get asked these questions about, Joe, that's pretty extreme doing 60 days of juice and then 90 days of just eating fruit, vegetables, nuts, beans, and seeds and some whole grains. I go, yeah, it was. But the reason why I chose to do that was because I had this awareness and aha moment that I was actually extreme the other way. So we'll see where my life was, was actually, I was actually extreme the other way. So we'll see where my life was, was actually I was maintaining this. I was like redlining this extremity, the opposite direction.

My lifestyle choices, my diet, my smoking, my alcohol intake, my drink intake, be it sodas and milkshakes and so on, my lack of exercise, my stress levels, my lack of sleep, my anger, all of those things. I mean, you look at all of the lifestyle choices. I mean, I'm redlining the lot. I'm getting a big fat F in all of them if I have to score myself. So no wonder I'm 310, 320 pounds. No wonder I'm on medication night and day for eight years.

No wonder I'm one foot in the grave. No wonder. I mean, I'm a walking time bomb. And I'm only 40. I was actually 32 to 40 for that period. So I look at that as an extreme, and then I needed to go the other way to that extreme to find the balance. Right.

And I'm not saying I've found it now. I mean, I'm still trying. But the other way I look at it, Rich, is I sort of go, you know, go down to – I think we can learn a lot from kids. I think kids can really teach us a lot. So go down to any playground anywhere in the world and we call them a seesaw in Australia. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Yeah, yeah. That's why I said the fulcrum of the balance of the seesaw tipping from one end to the other one. Okay, so hopefully everyone understands the seesaw or random irregular because sometimes we have different words. But the seesaw. I challenge you to look at any two kids that get on a seesaw. You know what kids love to do?

They love to get to that balancing point where both kids' feet are off the ground. But I've never seen kids that can go there straight away. They've got to go high, low, high, low, do-do-do-do, slowly, slowly, slowly to get to balance. And I think that's kind of like with us as well. We've got to go and explore these extremes to see and experience and to feel and to know, and then we have our own boundary set, our own guideline set, so that we can then go, you know what? That kind of extreme of just drinking juice, while that was really cool, I don't think that that's something I should do the rest of my life. Now, logically, that doesn't make sense, and that's probably not healthy

because we know it isn't if you just juice only. So likewise, living on, when I used to go to McDonald's, I would order a Big Mac, a quarter pound with cheese, a cheeseburger, a large fries, a chocolate shake. I love it. A chocolate sundae and get this, a Diet Coke. And don't ask me why I was a diet coke. What about the apple pie? Did you say the apple pie? No, the chocolate sundae. Okay. No, no, no. The apple pie didn't have enough sugar in it for me. So it was like- No double cheeseburgers? No, we didn't have them back in those days.

Oh, you didn't? No. Okay. We were pretty like vanilla menu down in Australia. So anyway, so that's a $16 meal. Right. Do you know, let me just interrupt you for one second. In Australia, do you know Andrew G. Auschuk-Gunsberg?

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so he's a friend of mine. I had him on the podcast and he calls it the window diet. He said if they roll down the window and they hand it to you, you eat it. I like that. I like that. Well, of course, I'd never get out of the car. Why get out of the car when you can drive up?

Yeah, of course not. Why expend that energy? Right. I mean, come on. So I think that when you explore both extremes, and so I think the answer is, is that for what we're trying to get the long answer to your question, which is that, you know, extremes,

the reason why I think a reboot works for so many people is it's doing two things. It's taking out a lot of the animal and the process. So it's giving our system a break from having to deal with that type of energy, number one. And then the flip side is because we're supercharging with the, I call it freebasing mother nature. Because we're actually putting this high, rich energy in, your body's never had that experience of being flooded with so much phytonutrients and liquid sunshine. It's never had that before. So you get this flip side going on, which is working to really take you to another level. And I think what it does, it resets the taste buds.

It takes you to this high, like from the valley to the top of the mountain. And if anyone who's been in a valley knows, you don't get much of a view. But when you're on top of a mountain, boy, the view can be just spectacular. And that's addictive. That's a real natural high. And so that in itself, I think all of that, what I just talked about, creates this falling back in love with fruits and vegetables. And you have this romantic feeling that, wow, this stuff's really good. And it's almost like we've been cheating on a partner for the last 80 years. I mean, for thousands of years, we were pretty happy with our plants,

you know? We sort of with them and we turned our back on them. And so now we're sort of paying the penalty. So we've got to try and get the relationship back in full swing. and i i think that you know sometimes when somebody says well that's extreme my response is well yeah so what i mean it requires a an extreme response and and what's wrong with that you know i think that a little extreme behavior once in a while is okay in order to shake things up i mean in order to get something good, you have to get out of your comfort zone and work hard. And one of the things that I thought was great about your movie is it didn't try to skirt around that. It didn't try to say, this is super easy. It's like, yeah, actually, this is going to be painful for a while. You're going to have to get out of your comfort

zone. It's not going to feel good. But when you weather it through, like all good things in life that you can place value on, it will be worth it and it will transform your life. And there is – our society is now – we're rigged to try to avoid anything uncomfortable. Everything about our culture is about being comfortable, making things easy and immediate. And we've lost touch with the value of hard work and getting out of your comfort zone and trying something new and pushing yourself. And I think that it's worth exploring. And if you want to call that extreme, I don't know what to say to that. I mean, I think that it's – like I said, I would question what's wrong with a little extreme behavior once in a while. And, you know- I think one of the most underused words and things is perspective. I think we tend

to don't use perspective enough, you know, not only the word, but also the actual action of it. So if I sort of put things in this, I use perspective a lot as a very powerful tool. You know, I use it to go like time travel. I go forward 20 years in time in a perspective. I go, what's my life going to be like at 67? Because I'm 47 today. I really think about at 67, what am I going to be able to do? Where am I going to be able to go?

What are my knees going to be like? What are my I going to be able to do? Where am I going to be able to go? What are my knees going to be like? What are my shoulders going to be like? How many pounds am I going to be? Am I going to be on medication? Am I going to have all my hair? I think about these things, and maybe I'm crazy, but I actually use it. I don't think about it all the time, but every now and then, I'll think about that. And I sort of pretend I'm in the future kind of thing. And I'll go, you know what? I really want to go sailing today. I want to go for a hike, or I want to go and ride my bike along the beach when I'm 67. I want to be doing that. And so I go, I know that the choices I'm going to make today, and now I flashback in time to real time, and I go,

I know the choices I'm going to make today are going to set up me being able to do that in the future. So I use perspective a lot in that way. I also use it to cover off the question that you're talking now about extreme. And I look at, say, from when I was 20 to 40, those 20 years of my life. And I look at what, you know, I did 20 years where I basically smashed my body effectively, you know. I would say I did the crime, so to speak, right? And I paid the penalty in terms of being sick and being overweight and being, I was a pretty

happy guy. I don't want to paint the picture that I was depressed because I'm generally a happy person, but I, you know, wasn't happy about being on medication and I wasn't happy about having to size 44 jeans or not being able to go in and buy clothes. It wasn't good. But I looked at that and I thought, okay, really what is two years is what I decided it would take to decide whether I was going to be able to get my life back on track. I mean, I'd done 20 years of the crime.

I thought two years in sort of prison, so to speak, to use the analogy, like to be sentenced to two years of hard labor, which is plants only, to see if I could get well. Terrible, Joe. Well, yeah, but you've got to remember, coming from the position where I was, that did sound terrible. And if we talked to average Americans out there today, you said, you're going to eat plants for the next two years from their diet. They would think that. I know. No, I know. And I thought that. I really did. I really did. Well, this goes back to the issue of perspective, right? Correct. And to sort of piggyback on what you're saying, take a step back and have a larger, broader perspective on the way

that we're leading our lives or what's normal now. And when you look at men in their 40s and their 50s, and it's all about erectile dysfunction and Viagra and how many medications you're on and the stent that you're having put in or the heart attack you just had or the bypass surgery you had and the obesity and the diabetes and all this sort of thing, that's normal. That doesn't, nobody blinks an eye when guys our age talk about this kind of stuff. And it's completely radical if you say, I'm gonna wake up in the morning

and instead of having bacon and eggs or pancakes for breakfast, I'm gonna have a green juice. You're like a pariah. Yeah. So that's a weird perspective shift, I think, where there's still a lot of work that needs to be done. Very much. I mean, you ask any person from around the world who comes

to America and spends a week on vacation, you know what one of the, and if you're in a hotel, they've got to be in a hotel, you know what one of the big things they're going to tell you that they just cannot believe about America is how much advertising on television there is for pharmaceutical drugs. See, we don't have that in other parts of the world. But if you're in America, that's normal. Right. But that's so not normal. And all the warnings about you're going to have suicidal ideations

and, you know, possible heart failure. I mean, can you imagine us advertising green juice? And, of course, the real bad side effects are you're going to feel great. You're going to, like, lose a few pounds. I mean, it's just – I don't know. But I think, yeah, perspective is a really powerful tool. So 20 years, I smash myself. I say to myself, I'm going to do two years in, like, plant world,

and that's my prison, so to speak. I end up saying I'm going to do solitary confinement for the first two months, which was 60 days of juice. And then I only, I was let out on good behavior after 90 more days. So in five months, I got my body back. I didn't even need to do the two years. You had Stockholm syndrome because you fell in love with your captor. That's right. Exactly. I like that. I like that. So, I mean mean that's the other thing too that that is a big part of my story i mean like yourself i smash my body forever drugs alcohol window diet i mean you know mcdonald's i mean i i'm right with you with all that kind of

stuff and uh and the amazing thing that i think you know you the point is made in your movie, but also I think it needs to be hammered home even more in a more hardcore way is just how unbelievably resilient the human body is when you begin to treat it right in a very, very short period of time, 20 years of abuse and you're still alive, you know, and then within a matter of days, weeks, but really in a matter of days, I mean, in one week of doing a juice fast, you can completely change how you feel and reset your trajectory after 20 years of abuse. The body responds when you start treating it right. It's

amazing, you know? And so for people that are out there that are struggling or they think they can't do it or it's not for them, I urge all of you to try something like this, like just a week, it's a week out of your life. We'll refund you your misery. You can go back to eating McDonald's, you know what I mean? But like to just, you owe it to yourself to try something new and different and to pay attention to how your body responds to how you treat it. Yeah, no, I couldn't say it better myself. You know, I mean, I saw the most, the sort of the most emotional moment in your movie for me

that gave me like chills when I saw it is when you're kind of sort of experiencing the success of this journey for yourself and you're enjoying that run on the beach on Bondi. And then you cut to Phil and he's running in the snow. And I was like, he's running. Incredible. What a miracle it is for that guy to be doing that.

Like, look, I have goosebumps. Yeah, no, I do too. Just remembering it. It's amazing that a guy like that could experience such a dramatic change. But it all started because he you know in recovery they say sobriety isn't for people who need it is for people that want it and you know you you encounter that guy in the truck stop you had a conversation with him like you had with a lot of

people on your cross-country journey around 50 but somebody something just stuck with him and one day he picked up the phone he was ready you. You have to be ready. You have to have that moment for yourself. You've got to be open. And I'm sure you get this, Rich, but I get so many husbands and wives or partners saying, you know, my partner, the person I love the most, just isn't making the change. What can I do to get them? You know, it's like you can lead the horse to water, you can't make

a drink. And my answer, I don't have all the answers, but I think you just got to be patient. And by pushing that person, you're actually making it worse. By actually pushing them, you're actually driving them further away. I couldn't agree with you more. What I say to them is, listen, let's just say it's a wife of a husband and they're trying to get their husband to do it. I say, look, you know what you can do? If you're the nutritional gatekeeper of the house, like you're the one who goes and gets all the food,

start making healthier food. If he doesn't eat it, that's fine. Like he's not going to eat it. Like he can do whatever, but just keep at it and lead by example. Don't push it like, you know, it's like don't tell people what to do. We go back to that, don't, you know, it's like, don't tell people what to do. We go back to that, you know, but I know it's hard. I know it's really tough and it's sometimes easy just to say it, but really it's, you know, people have to realize they're making it worse by pushing people sometimes. If you're not ready, you're not ready. Right. Absolutely. I experienced

that firsthand. Actually, my wife, who was the nutritional gatekeeper in our house, she wrote a post on MindBodyGreen about our experience with this. And it was a really interesting thing that happened, which was she was always much healthier than me. And for a long time, she's like, try this. Why don't you do this? Why aren't you eating like this? Like, you know, she was always trying to get me on a better path than I was on. And the more she did that, the more I resisted. I was like, I don't want any of that. And then one day, like, honestly, like on a very kind of deep spiritual level, she just made peace with it and she just let it go. And she's like, I love him the way he is. He's got his own path and it's none of my business. I'm going to, she still would make the healthy meals and she would lead by example and do all those things that you said but she really let it go and i think some when that happened like she didn't announce it to me she didn't say anything to me but i knew it i could

sense it and then suddenly there was no push on me and that made me go oh wait like maybe i should change because like i have to do it for my, like she's not pushing me to do it. Like this is on me now. Yeah. And it made me really look at myself and go, you know, maybe I don't like the way I feel and I would like to feel better the way she's doing and maybe there is something to this. But I had to come to that in my own way.

100%. I couldn't agree more. You've got to arrive at that position yourself. Anyone who's pushed there, it's just not going to happen. It's such a personal thing that I feel that it's almost like you want to own it yourself and you've got to own it because these changes, I mean, you know, I'm sure you have too, Rich, but one of the things that we're very lucky about in our positions

is we get to speak to a lot of smart people, a lot of people that, a lot of people that know a lot more than you and I put together. And I spoke to a guy called Professor Brian Wonsink who wrote that book, Careless and Mindless Eating. And he and his researchers, they've been studying food behavior for 25 years. So you just imagine that. That's been your life's work is food behavior. not necessarily healthy food, just how people behave around food. And what I learned from him in my three or four hours is just,

you know how many decisions we make about food every day, just the average person? Over 200. Now, if you've got over 200 choices and decisions on food every day and you're just going to rely on self-discipline, good luck with that. Good luck with that. Good luck with the time that you're stressed or you're in a hurry or someone's shouting at you or you've got a – like, you know,

you're tired, you didn't sleep very well. Good luck at trying to choose the cucumber over the chocolate bar then. Well, then what is the solution then? Well, I think being aware of that is really important. Mindfulness. But I'm saying that in connection to it coming from within. So if you and yourself have arrived at that point rather than using the example you said with your wife, is if your wife's trying to push you.

The minute she's looking the other direction, I'm green. That's my point. Because you've got 200 choices, therefore it's not going to. It has to come from within because when it's coming from within, then those 200 choices that you make, there's much more of an internal assistance that's helping you guide that way. So when you say, what's the solution? I mean, I'll tell you what I really think and what I believe is that

when you do a reboot and you feel so amazing and you're loving the view and you're putting the fuel in that makes you feel fabulous, those 200 choices are a lot easier to make. Yeah. And I would add to that, that if you're making unhealthy food choices or you feel like you have these food addictions or you're powerless and that elevator is going down, you don't have to hit some crazy bottom like I did or like Joe did where you have a big reckoning moment where your doctor tells you you're gonna die.

I mean, you can get off that elevator at any moment. You can make that decision. And what's great about doing one of these juice fasts or the reboot or whatever version of it that you wanna do is that it involves putting a lot of energy into a shift. And like we were talking about before, that number of days or the amount of energy or just the process of going to the store

and buying these foods and preparing to do this number of days where you're gonna do this kind of radical, seemingly radical thing creates that momentum for you to then set in motion a new way of doing things. And I think it's really powerful. Yeah. And I also add to that, that a lot of people come to me and say, you know, I don't think I need to do it either. I think my diet's pretty good. And I go, well, that's fantastic. I mean, that's awesome. But then I just say, but you know what? What's really cool, and I've had a lot of people do this, so you might want to try, is that one of the great ways to find out just how good your diet is, is to try a reboot.

Because if you can do a reboot and really cruise through it without any pain or any suffering or any withdrawals, then the chances are that what you are doing is that. Right. But you know what? This is a great way to challenge yourself to find out if what you are doing is – it's like a calibrator. Because if you – You get so used to feeling lousy, you don't know that you feel lousy. Yeah.

Well, even if people think they're on a great diet, this is my point is that I meet a lot of like really fit-looking, healthy-looking people that say, my diet's perfect. They don't use the word perfect. They say, my diet's really good. I go, well, then you probably don't need to do a reboot. But I'll tell you what you could do, just for a bit of science experiment on yourself, is try it. And if you don't experience any withdrawals or any pain, then the odds are that you are on a really good diet. But if you experience withdrawals, if you're incredibly tired, if you're agitated, if you're angry, then you probably didn't realize it, but there was probably something in the way you were living that was too much. I know from now the hundreds of thousands of people that have done this is that the more pain you go through in those first three or four days of juicing or switching to plants, if you go through massive pain, that means that you were doing something in your diet that was really giving you a lot of grief, whether it's the caffeine, whether it's the sugar, whether it's the salt, whether it's the fat, but you just don't suffer withdrawals on juicing if your diet is in great shape to start with. You don't.

Right. I mean, when I did it, I couldn't move. I was on the couch for a good two and a half, maybe three days. I literally felt like I was back in rehab, like detoxing off opiates or something like that. It was horrific. Yeah, no, no. Believe you me. I mean, I stupidly didn't even let the cameras in. I was feeling that bad. I mean, here am I, mate, because I never made a movie before. Right. I'm like, you guys are staying out there. That's the good stuff.

I know, but I didn't know that, you see. I never made a movie before. Right. Like, honestly. And when I got to the last day, you know, you start to feel better with each progressive day until you just feel amazing. I get to the last day and I tell my wife, like, I'm just, you know, like I hadn't seen your movie, your movie hadn't come out yet. And I'm like, I want to keep going.

Like I, you know, like this, there's no reason to stop. Like, like a good alcoholic. I'm just like, this is, I don't need food anymore. I'm just going to, cause I'm so good. So I understand the whole, like, I'm going to go for 30. I'm going to go for 60. Like, had I seen your movie before doing it, I probably would have gone much longer. I wanted to, you know? Well, you know, on day 60, I wasn't actually too far from where we are now.

We're in LA, and I was in San Diego when I went up in the balloon to break my 60 days. And I'm watching that thinking, why don't you keep going? I thought maybe you weren't going to take a bite and say, I'm going to do another 30. You know what? If I had the budget, I probably would have. But having a film crew and having all of that done,

it was kind of like logistics. I mean, I've learned a lot now. Actually, knowing now, I probably could have because I could have just said, go and take a break, guys, and we'll just catch you in. But I didn't think that. I was filming every day. I've learned a lot about making movies since then, let me tell you. So I was feeling so good, I really was thinking about doing 100 days.

But then I started doing the finances of another 40 days of the crew and I'm going to get broke. Did you self-finance the movie or how did it work? Yeah, in the beginning, the whole idea was to do it myself. But I started telling some mates of mine in Australia who are just good buddies in the finance world and stockbroking and futures world where I came from and some others from the investment banking world. And they all said, oh, this is great. We'll have a piece of this.

So a bunch of mates also put some money in and I think in the end I was like 75% and they were like 25% of the movie. And did you have any idea at the time that it would become the phenomenon that it has become? It depends what you mean by at the time because it took from 2006 to 2011 before it was released. So when Phil rang me up, okay? How long in real time was it from when you met Phil to when he called you? I met Phil in November of 2007 and he called me in May of 2008.

And the film, the first film I made, which no one will ever see, was actually my journey across America and six people that did a 10-day reboot. And that's where Siong, the one lady that's in the movie that does her juicing with her coffee and her husband out in Iowa, believe it or not. There's the Iowa connection again. So we were on time, on budget with the movie to be my journey arc, the beginning to the end, and then these six people

who were juicing while I was doing mine. So my 60 days was broken into six 10 days with other people doing it. So for the whole journey, I was talking to these six average Americans. So that was the first movie. But then when Phil called up, I said to the producer, Stacey Hoffman, I said, Stacey, we've got to get over and film this guy. She said to me, Joe, you are insane. We've got a movie that's nearly finished and you want to break out the crew again and shoot stuff? I mean, this is unheard of. That's the movie. This is unheard of.

But we didn't know it was a movie. You've got to remember. You don't know. He could flake after a day. Correct. Yeah. So you've got to go back to all we've got is a voicemail. All we've got is a voicemail of a guy saying, I need help. Okay? So it was like, what do you do here? And I thought immediately I've got to go over and do it. I mean, there was no doubt in my mind that I had to shoot it. The question was how would it fit into the movie?

And so I thought that this could be in the credits. So when the credits are running, there could be this three-minute, four-minute vignette of Phil, right? That was kind of the thinking. So that's how I convinced her to agree for me to spend my own money to get the crew out again, right? So then we went to Sheldon, Iowa. It took about a month to get that planned. So it was Mother's Day in May. And then we didn't get there till just around 4th of July, just before. It was like

late June. Took about four weeks, five weeks to plan, organize, get everything set, crew, me back to the US and work out what we were going to do, get doctors organized to monitor him. So when we got there, I thought 10 days will be enough for Phil. He'll do 10 days and that's all we planned on. Right. Because you were, yeah, you're there and then you're kind of like, all right, I got to go. Well, I made a conscious decision that it's no good having Joe fly in and be this trainer. No, no, no. Otherwise, that's not real.

I mean, I can't do that for everybody. But coming in and spending the day before, meeting him again, seeing where he lives, getting the doctor to look and see whether this is possible, going to a supermarket, cranking him out, showing him the first juice, this is what you do, this is how it works, and then saying, right, I'm going to leave you with a sound guy, a camera guy, and a producer. There's going to be three people. They're going to stay here for the next 10 days.

And you want to quit? You quit. You want to do anything? These guys are not telling you what to do. All they are is to capture your thoughts and what you're doing. No one's telling you what to do here, Phil. And so I said, you know, I'll come back in 10 days or I'll meet you or we'll talk then. I didn't actually plan to actually come back because it was like,

you know what, we'll just talk on the phone. But then he got to day 10 and he said, I want to keep going. And I'm like, really? $3,500 a day for my camera crew out there in accommodation by the lake. I don't look like a really nice like lake accommodations there. It's like a nice vacation. How long do you want to go for? You call up your buddies in finance. Yeah, well, this is where it got to, you know, You've got a nice vacation. How long do you want to go for? So it was-

You call up your buddies in finance. Yeah, well, this is where it got to, you know. Now the economic crisis is happening too now in 2008. And so I'm like, okay, well, we'll keep them going, you know. Like we'll keep the cameras going and let's see where this goes. And then, of course, we didn't know he was going to keep going. We didn't know the doctor would let him. We didn't know the results.

I mean, we had no idea, you know. And so it went another 60 days and he wanted to keep going. And I said, mate, you're really sending me a break. We have to stop. And so that was it. He went 61. And then he kept going afterwards so he couldn't finish the film because, like, he wanted to get into that T-shirt

and it took another nine months and he was there running in that final scene so it's like now we've got a we've got like this whole new film versus the other film and so we had to then start again right so all the work on the first film was like new editors new team come in so all that money is sunk and so now the budget is really blowing out so So now enter my bank managers having a coronary heart attack. So, you know, it was a very interesting time because – and you asked me when did I know. I felt that my journey was equivalent to the Forrest Gump running across America and people just coming along and following.

And Phil was the first person to follow. He was really the first person who said, you know what? I liked what that guy did and I saw what he did. I want to try that. And so it was kind of like the when Harry met Sally moment, you know? I'll have what she's having. And that to me was when I knew at that point, I thought, wow. Phil calling up and a bloke, I mean, no one really cares about a rich white guy from Australia, you know, and who cares about Joe, but a Phil, a bloke who's 430 pounds, who's effectively living in the back of his truck

that, you know, needs the TV on at night when he was sleeping in those first four or five days by the lake, because he couldn't not sleep without noise because he's used to the trucks on the highway and noise. You know, that's someone people will care about. To a guy who's doing a community night at the natural foods market and everyone's showing up and he's explaining to them what kale is. 30 days later. Yeah. I mean, it's incredible. So I knew then that we had something. I didn't think it was going to be as big as it is because you just don't.

But I also get the sense that just from getting an idea of the way your mind works and watching the movie and reading up a little bit on you, I mean, I get the sense that when you made the movie, it wasn't just, hey, I'm going to make a movie and go back to my life in finance, that there was a long-term plan here. Like to start this movement.

Only seven months later, though, remember, honestly, if Phil hadn't have made the phone call, I reckon I would have gone and just got that movie out because I wouldn't have put the effort in. I wouldn't have. And it would have come out in 2000, and it would have come out at the end of 2008 and that wouldn't have been a Netflix.

You know what I mean? No, it would have been an interesting movie, but it would not have captured the – I mean, the emotional connection that you develop with Phil and that story and the relationship between the two of you guys is what really elevates the whole thing. So I think that there was a lot of – you know, you can use the word luck, and I believe in luck. I mean, rule number two in my life is lady luck follows a person of action. So you've

got to be doing the things to bring it on. But I think that there was like an alignment of the planet, so to speak, where a lot of sequences and a lot of events have led to this story of sharing, getting out there. So, you know, very fortunate with social media, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, these things to be in their prime when the movie broke. Very fortunate to have Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, Apple, iTunes, all of these things really firing at the time when the content came out. So, you know, really firing at the time when the content came out. So, you know, you can't underestimate the distribution platform. I mean, my movie, you know, I mean, here's the crazy thing,

which we're in Hollywood world right now, right? We're in LA. We're two miles from Fox Studios. We're three, four miles from Universal. You know, all the big movie houses, right? Now, I know people in media, so I was very fortunate. I got in to see the heads of all the studios. I gave screenings when the movie was finished in 2010, when I finally finished it. I did like two months out

here of screenings to all the big studio executives, trying to see whether they would buy the movie and distribute it through movie theaters. You know what I learned? They'd bring 200 people along, all their officers, all their people, to do the judgements. Every single time I did a screening, I was inundated with what's the recipe for the green juice? Where do I buy a juicer? Like these were the questions.

It wasn't about the movie. It was about what do I need to do? Is there a plan? I mean, this was the top executives. I'm like thinking, this is really good. They're actually going to want to do the movie. They're going to want to buy it. And then I'd say, well, here's that.

You've got to get cucumber. You've got to get celery. You've got to get – and I'd talk for half an hour about the whole health side of things, and then at the end I'd say, and what about the movie? What do you think? Oh, no, no, no. You're not Hugh Jackman or Russell Crowe. We don't know how to market this.

I tell you, it's a great movie though, but that recipe, thanks for that. See ya. And it was like, okay. So these guys in Hollywood don't understand that, I mean, sorry, let me rephrase that. They didn't understand how to market something that wasn't cookie cutter for how they normally do a film, which I understand. I mean, I get that. That's business. So the power of the streaming, the power of Netflix and the model that we have now, that if you can make content that's good enough, it will rise to the top and people will share it. Yeah, there's no question. I mean- So I'm very fortunate to have that. Yeah. I mean, it's doing incredibly well online on Netflix. And I think Forks Over Knives is still

like one of the most downloaded documentaries or streamed documentaries on Netflix. And I think, you know, forks over knives is still like one of the most downloaded documentaries or stream documentaries on Netflix. I mean, there is a, an interest and a movement and a, a zeitgeist moment that we're experiencing right now where people finally are really, you know,

wanting to take a look at this and do something different. So absolutely. And I, and I believe the wave of like,, it's easy for you and I, because we're living and breathing this all the time, to get a little bit complacent, I think, to thinking that this movement is actually bigger than it is, because it's actually really still small. When you really look at the 316 million Americans and you take another sort of 800 million people living

in the Western world and you add it all up to a billion people that live in the way that we talked about earlier, in the fun part of town. So it still is in its infancy. And I am hugely optimistic about how big the tsunami, this wave of awareness and thirst and hunger, to use the puns, for information, for the rich content of food to put in their body. I mean, I just, you know, I think there are, you know, a very, very smart friend of mine who's a very bright boy. He told me, he said, Joe, there are four big stories in the world

today in terms of economics. He said, that's the rise of China, the rise of the internet, the American independence on energy story, and the rise of health and wellness. And when I have a guy like that, who's a very smart guy, tell me that, those four things. And he puts health and wellness in that category. And I know who he talks to. I know the smart people who control billions of dollars. When I hear that, that's very optimistic to me that the top end of town is thinking that way. Right. So is this your full-time thing now? Are you still doing private equity?

No, no, no. This is my full-time thing. This is your full-time thing. This is my full-time thing. I have to – I think that the opportunity – like I'm – John Mackey wrote a book called Conscious Capital. I don't know whether you've read it or met John. But I really think that the way he describes his business is something that I would like to think that I can model my company on in that I think

that you can't just be too extreme of all you worry about is the customer because then suppliers and your staff and investors are going to be left out. And you can't be all about making money, which is just for the investors, because then your customers are going to be not looked after. So it's about finding this this very, this balance inside of the company side of things as to doing good, but also valuing it and ensuring that you can create some kind of a revenue stream that can keep the dream alive. And so that's what I've been working very hard on for the last few years. And I give a lot of stuff away for free on the website and also in real life, like time when I go and talk at places and

so on. And I don't know how much I'll be able to keep that up because it's not really efficient to go to a town and speak to 200 people when you can be making television and making movies that can be reaching hundreds of thousands of people. But I still really like to press the flesh and to touch people and to hear them because I think I learn so much more when I do that. So the balance now is this is my full-time job. And I like to think of it that I'm very excited about it. I mean, I'm loving it. I don't actually think about it, which is a job. It's just what I do. It's just like my life. So I don't really think about days off or work days. To me, everything is, it's a Saturday

now and we're doing this, right? And this is not hard labor. I mean, people digging holes and laying down tar on the roads, that's hard work. What I do is not hard work. What I do is I try my best to take complicated things that are difficult for some people to understand, try to make them simple for people to understand, try to put it in a logical way, try to do that in storytelling, be it in movies or TV stuff that I'm trying to work on to try and work out ways that can make fun TV, stuff for the internet, whether it's short stuff like what you're doing here with podcasts and books and events.

And we just did a fantastic thing last month. We did a 200 people came and did camp reboot up in about two hours, three hours north of New York City in a place called Rhinebeck at the Optimum Health, the Omega Institute. And 200 people came and juiced with me for six days. And it was awesome. It was unbelievable from all over the country. And just to see those people's changes in their lives just in those five, six days and just incredible.

So, you know, that's, you know, so what I'm doing is I'm doing that. I mean, I look at my company as a media company. I create content. We have an e-commerce platform for our stuff online, and we also do licensing in terms of the brand with corporations and people who want to associate with our values. And I think that that's the model that I'm working on. I'm enjoying it. It's working so far. It's, you know, I've got 15, 16 employees. Now we just hired someone

this week. That's great. So, you know, 16 mouths to feed or juices to make. Yeah. So, I mean, that's one good thing about wherever I go. I mean, wherever I go, I get free juice. So that's that. The expenses are pretty cheap on the juice. Let me ask you this. Did Braville, did they pay for that branded entertainment in Fat Sick? What kind of deal did you make? It's a really good question and thanks for asking because it gives me a chance to always talk about that. So the interesting thing about this, and this is like people do not believe this. Honestly, I tell this story and I think that people don't believe it. What, that they doubled their

revenue after the movie? Oh no, well that, I think people believe that. No, no, no, no, no. The story I'm going to tell you is that the night before we started shooting in New York, when I had no idea how to make a movie, and I'd never done this before, we were doing a checklist of all the stuff we had and needed to make the movie. and I'd never done this before, we were doing a checklist of all the stuff we had and needed to make the movie. We got all the stuff. We'd forgotten to buy the juices.

This is how organised Team Reboot and Joe Cross was the night before Countdown, all right, to starting this. So I raced up to a store on Houston and Broadway, a crate and barrel store, and I went in and I didn't know the first thing about machines. But the Breville brand I recognised from Australia. So I just went up and bought the juicer that I knew the brand. I mean, I'm like one of those guys.

I'm a brand guy. I go, okay, that must be all right. I know that brand. I don't know these names, but I know that one. So I just bought the machine out of it. And then I was walking to the counter. I thought, I better buy two because what if it breaks and I'm like in the middle of Omaha or Nebraska or Kansas?

I need a machine because, I mean, you know, this is not going to be pretty if I haven't got a machine. So I went back and bought two. So I bought two of them. And that was it, honestly. That was how I got that machine. It was no, I didn't talk to the company. I didn't do any endorsement.

I did nothing. And then about – so that was like October of 07. And then around June, July of 08 when we were going out to fill, because I'd been in the edit room for a few months, I was posting on social media on my own page, just my own page. I didn't have any company page or any public profile page. I was posting photos from the edit room of me standing in front of the big screen with me behind the movie screen with juicing.

You know what I mean? Right. Because we'd hired this room to do the colour correct. And so a friend of mine then shared that photo and someone from Breville saw that photo of me with a juicer. And so they then reached out via Facebook to me, what are you doing? We work at this company.

And I said, oh, well, we've been doing this movie, but we're not going to show you until it's finished, but I'm not showing anybody until it's finished. And they said, well, if you need any help with machines, let us know and we'll just give you some because I was buying them at this stage. Right. So when we went out to do the Phil sort of community reboot, you know how we went out there to Iowa after he was sort of in his mindset?

We needed six machines. So we bought them. Actually, Breville gave us those six machines for the filming when Phil was doing it. So that was how they got involved via the social platform. And then it wasn't until the movie was finished, it was done, it was out. I didn't have any commercial relationship with them or any juice company at all. When the movie broke on Netflix in 2011, I had every juice extractor company in the world

wanting to sign me to do a deal. And while some of the financial numbers were better from other companies, I just felt that I had to keep it real, that it would look kind of very strange is that I used a Breville juicer in the movie and now I'm using XYZ juicer. So I just felt that the whole idea to keep it real and keep it transparent. And I've got to be honest, Rich, if that juicer had broken, like on day 15, I probably wouldn't have done the deal because why am I going to endorse something that's going to break? I was going to say broke in the middle. Yeah, and you'd probably want that in the movie too. Like, oh, it broke.

That would create a crisis moment in the movie. It would have been. But what I'm saying is I wouldn't endorse something that had broke after 15 days. So the fact that I didn't need the second machine, the fact that it lasted, and the fact that I just felt that to be true to the fans and the people who wanted to really do this is they're going

to spend their hard-earned money. I mean, money is really hard to come by that I may as well stay true to the values. So while it wasn't the most lucrative deal at the time, like to actually sign up, there was much bigger money being offered by infomercial world and all that. Right. I just felt, you know what, just keep it real.

You know, what's amazing is you're kind of recounting these dates like, oh, in early 2007, this was going on. And I'm thinking, what was I doing at that time? And we're essentially the same age and we kind of started this thing at the same time. Like you did your 60 days, like literally like at the same time that I was starting to do this and then kind of getting back into being fit and you're making a documentary and I'm training for Ultraman, you know, like,

and here we are like sitting here talking about it a couple of years later. It's crazy, man. My moment happened when I turned 40. Right, that's exactly mine mine happened literally like the day or two days before my 40th birthday mine was a day of because i went out the night before and i went crazy the night before so the next morning i mean you know i was in real bad shape i'd had that's a good place to start though well it was but you

know it was something about it was something about having a four, like, you know, it was something about having a four at the front of my birth, my age. Like a three, I could handle. It was close to a two. Forty's a big, yeah, I mean. Four's close to five, you know. I mean, you know, it's like, hey, get up there. It's so trite, you know, it's that, oh, turn 40, you know,

what is my life about kind of moment. But, you know, it happens. It's true. It happened to both of us. And I think another thing that I wanted to kind of talk about a little bit, I know we're going long, I don't want to take you too long, but there's the other kind of thing that resonates with your story that I relate to a lot is this idea of kind of, um, you know, being a successful guy, you know, you kind of did everything that you thought, uh, would make you happy. You know, you're pursuing wealth, you're, you're successful, you're making money. You're kind of adhering to all of society's rules about like what you're supposed to do as a man to be successful, to be respected, to feel good about yourself. We both did that. I was a lawyer and I played that out and it literally led me to like a spiritual crisis of, you know, I did all the things that I thought I was supposed to do. And not only am I terribly unhealthy, I'm really like unhappy with these choices that I've made and where I'm at with my life. And then for you to be sitting here and say, oh, it's Saturday. I don't consider what I'm doing work now. It's just

what I do. That's a beautiful thing. And that's a long way from doing something that is the more traditional route. Yeah. I know. I'm sure you do too. I know a lot of people with a lot of money, and I, you know, most of them aren't as happy as people who have got less, to be honest. Hey, we're in Hollywood right now. How many, like, really rich people I know that are, you know, really not happy people? A lot, you know, a lot. I think also, you know, sticking with the theme of keeping it simple,

because I've given this a lot of thought, this subject that you've talked about. And, you know, I think that when it comes down to it, we are jugglers. That's what we are. Each and every one of us is a juggler. And we're predominantly juggling five things. We juggle family and friends. We juggle things. We juggle family and friends. We juggle love. We juggle our career.

We juggle our health. And we juggle self. And for self, that could be a lot of things, but it's really yourself. So how you view yourself, whether it's your religion, your spirituality, just self. And so if you think about juggling those five things, what I was doing is that I was completely dropping one or two of the balls. And I dropped them for a long time. So I found it easier to juggle three things than five things, Rich, right? So the three things being career.

Well, I was juggling family and friends. I was juggling career. And I was juggling self. I think I was doing that. The things that I wasn't doing was health and love. I was like, they were the ones, they were the balls I dropped. I just like, not going to worry about those and let them wither on the vine over there. Okay. So, you know, and if you do that, I think what happens is, is that you, you end up

with a crisis because you can't ignore those other balls that you have to juggle to be a human, that you have to juggle to be a human, to achieve happiness, to achieve success in the terms of – see, to me, success is keeping all five balls in the air. That's what success is to me, keeping them up there and doing your best you can and balancing that effort in all five of them and not just focusing on one. It's easy to focus on one. And I was – you know, the career one, I mean, I was gung-ho at that.

I was good at that. And so I give myself the pat on the back for being good at the career, and that's what I was focused on. Well, and culturally, that's really what's prioritized. Sure, sure. If you're doing good in your career, then you're doing good. And it appears on the outside that you are successful, that you are. So it's an illusion, okay?

It's a complete illusion. It's nothing more than an illusion. And we can't cheat ourselves as to our own happiness. I mean, I really do believe that the happier I am, I find the more useful I am, the happier I am. It's probably the thing I've learnt the most out of this whole journey. The more useful, the more happy. When I feel useless is when I'm least happy.

And so I think that that juggling of those five balls now I really, you know, and by the way, I'm far from perfect, okay, but I'm trying is what I'm trying to do. And having the awareness of trying to do it and working on it and just putting the effort in, which actually means you're keeping busy trying to do it and being useful, actually propels the momentum of happiness forward. So that's the way I look at it now. You know, if someone had told me that I'd be getting up in front of 2,000 people talking about bowel movements six years ago, I would have said they've got rocks in their head.

But now it's like one of my favourite subjects, you know, what goes in must come out. And so just having this, I mean, look, I'm blessed. I am very, very lucky to be 47 years of age and to have this view that for the next 20 years, I feel like I'm going to be making content and sharing stories and meeting people like yourself that are doing incredible things out there in the world. And the great thing about what we do, I'm now putting my business hat on, is that you and I have no competitors. That's the incredible thing about this. It's very unusual in the business side of things. Every single person out there that is trying to share

or spread the word, I am only too happy to promote. And you are too. Yeah, absolutely. Which is unusual when you think about it. But because it's in the infancy of this tsunami of awareness that's coming, that we're all just trying to help each other get as much of the word out as possible because it's going to, in the end, there is so much to be done that no one person can do it all. Oh, there's no way. It has to be done together as a team. And I think that the happiness quotient really is a function of just doing something that's of service, really. I mean, you're of service and no doubt

you get crazy emails from people all over the world or phone calls or people that you have conversations with who tell you how you've touched their lives. And you know that you're on the right path and that this is what you're supposed to be doing, and it keeps you directed and motivated. Look, I mean, I'm blessed. There's not a day that goes by that I can't go on Twitter or Facebook.

And I mean, there's probably not even, to be really honest, there's probably not a two-hour period that doesn't go by where I don't get a note from somebody thanking me. Just think about that. Every two hours, someone I don't even know in the world from somewhere like in Iceland or from Dubai or from Argentina or from Omaha, Nebraska, or from Philadelphia, sending me a note saying, you've touched my, I mean, that's worth, you know, more than any houses or planes or boats. You can't go back to private equity. No. I mean, you could, but you, you know.

I'm not going back there. You take that skill set that you have. I take it forward. Yeah, you direct it in an appropriate direction. Exactly. I think that we have to live in the world today bound by the rules we have. There are rules. There are taxes to pay.

There's rent to pay. There's mouths to feed. So we can't be completely off in the pixies and believing in fairies at the bottom of the garden. We have to keep it real. We have to make sure that we're diligent about the way that we spend our money, our time, our effort, and the business that we're building. Because if you can't pay the bills, you can't send the message out, right? So there is a balance. So I try to keep it in check. And I'm fortunate that I've got the business skills that I did in the past life, you know, that I can bring forward now and use those in this current trajectory

of spreading as much of my story and other people's stories as possible because I think story-driven is the area that I'm focused on in trying to promote this world of feeling better, looking better, living longer and being happier. I mean, and really, when you think about it, Richard, it's pretty crazy that we've got to – like if you went back like 2,000 years and you said like, what do you do? Oh, like we're in the business of promoting people to eat more vegetables.

They'd like look at you and go, so that's all there is to eat, isn't it? What else is there? Is there anything else I'm supposed to be doing? Exactly. You're creating a business out of this? How does that work exactly? I don't get that. I think it's one of the things that I'm constantly reminded of also is that there's a multi-billion dollar business behind what we do.

I mean, the farmers, agriculture, the fruit and vegetable people, they're all out there. I mean, they're happy for what you and I are doing. They're very excited about this. So harnessing that power. And right now it's like herding cats, all these people out there in the space of the fruit and vegetable. But I'm confident that they will unite and that they'll be able to get that message out in a more powerful way that can be as strong as some of these other corporations that are, you know, pushing water and sugar and salt and fat. So I'm optimistic about the future.

I'm glad to hear that. I mean, that was one of the questions I wanted to ask you is if you, you know, if that optimism ever gets tempered, you know, and just watching the conversations that you have with these people in the documentary and they're just, you know, you just sit there and you tell them, here's your path to becoming a completely different, improved person. And they just say, thank you, but no thank you. You know, and it's like easy to get worn out.

Like you said, you met 350 people. Yeah, I met a lot more, I spoke to them. Yeah, and so how many of those people are just sort of like dismissive? Does that ever wear you down? No, it never wears me down. I don't get worn down with it. I think that the way I look at it is that the people who are like 50 and 60 years of age now,

if they're going to continue down the path that we're talking about, like this 93% of their energy coming from that source, they're not going to be with us long. They're not going to be around. It's just the way it works. I mean, that's just biological laws of cause and effect. They won't be here. But who is here is their children.

And what I'm noticing is how many of the younger generation, it's like we have this, you and I have probably been around for two generations, I guess. We were born one and now we're sort of becoming the next one. And what history teaches us is that every generation rebels against the one before in some way. And I really think that this generation now is rebelling in terms of, I don't want to be like mum and dad. I don't want to be on five medications.

I don't want to be obese and sick and tired and unhappy and miserable. I don't want to be that. And so I think that this new generation of youth that's coming through, through the power of their – I mean, look, there's a lot – they're not perfect. There's a lot of things about them which scares the hell out of their, I mean, look, there's a lot, they're not perfect. There's a lot of things about them which scares the hell out of me, all right? You talked about it earlier in this, you know, not wanting to do stuff too tough and hard and that. But if there's anything I can see from a positive side is I see so many young people in their teens

and in their early twenties that are really interested in this. And momentum is really picking up for young people who want to make this a career, whether it's health coaching or going into it, into the world of wellness and preventative medicine. And so I see younger doctors really in tune with this, very much more holistic about nutrition than older doctors. So I'm very optimistic. I mean, do you ever watch a show called Mad Men? Of course. You know the show?

Yeah. So I like to think about Mad Men, once again, using perspective. I mean, you go back to Mad Men in the, what is it, the 1960s sort of era is when they're on Madison Avenue and you've got the executives. And, you know, what are the three things on Mad Men that really shock us today when we watch it? And that's the drinking.

The smoking. The drinking, the smoking. And misogyny. And patting the secretaries, you know, this attitude towards women. You know, like, I mean, Peggy's the young sort of executive and it's, you know, all the secretaries are women and they're all having an affair. You know what I mean?

It's like this attitude. Now, if you think like today, they're the three things that shock us the most. And it's like, yeah, you can't imagine that world today on Madison Avenue. And it just doesn't happen. So I kind of think that, well, what are people going to look back in, say, 50 years' time on this time right now? What are people going to look at going, geez, what are they doing back there in 2010 and 2015? Can you imagine doing that now in 2055, 2060? Right, like the super big gulp and, you know, hopefully.

I think it's going to be the fact that can you believe they let advertising be played on television to their kids on Saturday mornings of those sorts of products were able to be positioned to children? Can you imagine that parents actually went out and bought this food and gave it to their kids? Can you imagine that? That's where I think it's going to be in 50 years time. I hope so. I would love nothing more than for that to be the case and including changing school

lunches. And it really is all about the kids. And it does start with the marketing messages that are sent over the airwaves to the children. They're so powerful. Yeah. I mean, I come back to supply and demand because everything, when you talk about economics, and at the end of the day, the economic shift in what we're talking about is going to come to bear. You cannot have a society, like I think it's right now, I mean, I want to get these numbers right, so I'm going to go into my memory. I think it's 26 million Americans right now are diabetic. It's either 23 or 26, but I'm

going to go with 26 million are diabetic. And over 100 million are pre-diabetic. Think about that. A third of the country is pre-diabetic. Now, if we continue to go at the rate we're going, Now, if we continue to go at the rate we're going, we're going to have those people will become diabetics. They'll get there. You can't have the economics do not support a society where that many people are on medication, that many people are sick. It just doesn't – it won't work. It'll collapse upon itself. But in our country, we'll allow it to collapse unless regulation comes in to curb that. So it really isn't so much a supply and demand thing because unchecked, the fast food companies are reliant on getting kids hooked on this stuff and developing them into lifelong customers,

irrespective of the long-term health ramifications of eating that way. In the same way that the cigaretteifications of eating that way, in the same way that the cigarette companies noticed that before laws came in to regulate their advertising, it was all about trying to get young people interested in smoking. Sure. Okay. So maybe in terms of that, I actually started talking about supply and demand and I went off on another track. So just take that diabetes situation, right? That's the reality. Now go to supply and demand in the way that I wanted to talk about it was,

is that I believe that you and I are in the demand side of the equation. This is what we are. We are out sharing stories and inspiring and educating and entertaining people to increase demand, okay? If we can increase demand, the supply will come. Right now, when you go into a supermarket and you pull out $5 and you buy a packet of Oreo cookies, which I love, by the way, you buy a packet of Oreos, you are sending a message up the food chain through to, I think it's Nestle that makes that product, and to make more. So you are voting with your hard-earned money in the demand, please make more. The same thing happens if you buy kale or buy cucumber or buy broccoli.

You are sending a message to the farmers, please grow more. So what I am very passionate about is getting that message out to people that when you spend your hard-earned dollar, you are voting for something on the supply side. So at the end of the day, the simple mathematics and equation is, is that if 50 million Americans walked into McDonald's tomorrow and said, I want a green juice, they did it the next day, they did it the next day, what do you think McDonald's would be selling next week?

They would be selling green juice. So this is where the economics of supply and demand for me that what we need to do is we need to level the playing field. We need to make it easier, more affordable. We need to make it time effective for people to get energy into their body that is more nutrient dense, more nutrient rich than what we're doing. But I believe that the demand is coming. And so because of that, the supply will prevail. I agree with you that there's the headwinds against us are strong and the wind is on our nose right now. I mean, we're bashing through it right now, but I'm confident that changes will occur. When I talk, when I hear people, big end of town people talk about this,

when I see the investment that's going in right now in the Valley into these sorts of startup companies that are about supplying healthier options and foods, and I see that happening. It's early days. I mean, what are we, 2013? What we're talking about may not take effect to 2020, 2022, as an example, just to go out eight, nine, 10 years, but it's coming. And so I believe that. I believe that the people in Congress will realize, the people that will see it, that what they're doing is they're actually subsidizing corporations to make this food that is so low in nutrients, it's so high in energy, but so low in nutrients that it's causing this effect for a $2.8 trillion medical expense bill. Yeah, it's an incredibly expensive, inefficient system that is essentially just making us sick and driving up healthcare costs.

So if you're an economist, just looking at that, you're like, this needs disruption. This needs to be changed. We cannot continue down this path and be a sustainable economy. Yeah, and I believe it's coming. I'm very optimistic about it. Timeline, I wish it was tomorrow, but that won't happen. Well, we're taking steps now. We're doing our best.

Yeah. We're doing it. And remember, the world wasn't changed by reasonable people. No, it was not. Okay. You have to be unreasonable to make the change. Let's shake on being unreasonable right now. Okay, we're unreasonable together.

Good on you, Mitch. All right, man. Well, I think we should end it on that, man. Yeah. How do you feel? Anything else you want to talk about? We want lots of people to be unreasonable. I know.

No, mate, I think it's good. I appreciate it. Thanks for the time. It's been great chatting. Thanks for doing it, man. So if you want to connect with Joe or learn more about what Joe is up to, go to rebootwithjoe.com, right? Is that the best place?

Yep. And I'm on Twitter at Joe the Juicer. And also on Facebook, we've got a Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead page, and we've got a Joe Cross public profile page. Right. And there's fatsickandnearlydead.com is up just as some information about the movie, right? Yeah, and the movie, for those who haven't seen it,

you can watch it on Netflix, you can watch it on Hulu, you can go to iTunes, Amazon, it's on all those platforms. And, you know, one of the really fun things that we've been able to do is because of our partnership with Breville is that we've got some marketing dollars, which companies our size wouldn't even dream of. And so we've been making some TV ads that are going to go out in a couple of weeks across America. So we're going to have these ads on TV that are going to show

the success stories of some people and try and drive people to watch it online. That's going to be fun. That's great. So, yeah, it's all pretty cool. And, you know, the thing that I'm blown away by with is that if this didn't work, the fact that we're so open on social media, we get enough people telling us it doesn't work.

I'm just blown away by I don't get that. I mean, I get people saying it was too hard and I had to stop, but I just don't ever get people saying it didn't work. I'm just blown away by I don't get that. I mean, I get people saying it was too hard and I had to stop, but I just don't ever get people saying it didn't work. And that's like really kind of crazy when you think about it. You'd expect some people to say, oh, you know, I did the 10 days, it didn't work. But you don't. You don't get that.

You get everybody saying it was tough, it was hard, but boy, I feel amazing and thanks so much and that was great. And by the way, I didn't invent it. You didn't invent it. This is something that's been around for a dawn of time. No, that's the thing. It's not really a product. You're just saying drink a bunch of vegetables for 10 days

and see how you feel. There's nothing proprietary about that. No, roll the dice. I know. So anyway, man. All right. Well, you're an inspiration. Oh, you are too, Rich.

I appreciate the time, and I look forward to seeing the new movie when it comes out and all the TV shows and the media empire that you're building here. Just doing my best, mate. Just doing my best. I know you are too, and it's great to connect with other people that are on the path. So it's awesome. And I'm sure we'll see each other again. I'll get you on one of my shows.

Absolutely, man. All right, man. Cool. All right. Thanks a Cool. All right. Thanks a lot. Peace. Lance. Peace.

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