The Rich Roll Podcast - Fitness Confidential

Episode Date: July 3, 2013

My buddy Vinnie Tortorich — ultra-cyclist, celebrity trainer, fellow podcast host and now author — joins the show for a record 3rd appearance to talk about the release of his new book Fitness Confidential*. Part memoir, part fitness primer and part comedy, this book is your beach read for July. Vinnie and I don't always see eye to eye on everything – particularly nutrition. And he's not everyone's cup of tea. But he's still my man — we've gone through a lot together and he has always been there for me. I love that Vinnie calls it like he sees it, doesn't pull punches and isn't afraid to call BS — particularly when it comes to the latest health and/or nutrition fad. If that appeals to you, then you'll love the book. It's pure Vinnie, through and through Writing a book is damn hard. But what's even harder is getting people to read it after you spent years of blood, sweat, tears and toil to get it right. I've been there. So the least I can do for my good friend is give him my microphone, let him tell you about the process first hand, and help him spread the word. I hope you enjoy the show! Rich

Welcome to episode 38 of the Rich Roll Podcast with Vinny Tortorich. What's up health nuts, fitness freaks? This is Rich Roll, and welcome to the Rich Roll Podcast. Who am I? I am a plant-based ultra-endurance athlete, triathlete, multi-sport athlete. I am an author. I'm the author of the best-selling book, Finding Ultra. I am a healthy lifestyle advocate, and I am a public speaker. I'm actually coming to you from Johnstown, PA.

I was on a plane all day yesterday flying out of LA to central Pennsylvania. I'm speaking at the Vegetarian Summerfest, and I'll tell you a little bit about that in a second. But what we do here, what do we do here? My goal is to bring you the best and the brightest in health, fitness, nutrition, athletics, people pushing the boundaries of what is possible with the human body and the human spirit. Over the last couple of years, I've had the good fortune of meeting a lot of incredible people as I walk this plant-based path, this path of reinventing myself as a middle-aged athlete and

health advocate. And I started this podcast so that I could introduce to you guys all of these wonderful personalities and have long-form conversations with them so that they have yet another platform to share their knowledge and their information with you. The idea is to bring you this information to inspire you and educate you, but most of all to empower you to become your best self. Self. Did I say self? Self? Self. Self. Did I say self? Self? Self. We all have that dream deferred, locked down deep inside of us. And if my book speaks to anything or if I'm about anything, it's about trying to unlock and unleash that more authentic version of yourself and empower you to capture that dream and pursue it, to become more of who you are, who you were meant to be

in this short life on planet Earth, because life is short, man, and time is of the essence. So let's get going. Let's get right into it. Like I said, I'm in central Pennsylvania, bucolic, beautiful. As I was flying in, I posted a picture on Instagram. Quite lovely. Very green, rolling hills. I wish I brought my bike. It's so nice. And I'm attending this event

that I'm speaking at. It's called the Vegetarian Summer Fest. I'm going to be speaking today's July 3rd. I'm speaking on July 4th. I'm sure nobody has plans, so you can all get in your car on July 4th and come see me speak in the afternoon in rural Pennsylvania. I'm also speaking on the 5th. I'm doing a fitness Q&A panel with my buddy, John Pierre, who's a sort of celebrity fitness trainer, plant-based guy, awesome dude, who also has a book coming out soon, which brings me to this idea that I'm trying to, there's all kinds of crazy cool speakers at this event. So I'm running around or I'm going to be running around chasing them, trying to get them to spare an hour to sit down with me for the podcast. So no promises yet, but hopefully I will now have a couple cool interviews with some interesting people that I can be uploading very soon. John Pierre being one of them. I've been trying to track this guy down forever to try to get him on the show.

He's got a great perspective and has trained a lot of interesting people and has been a plant-based athlete and trainer for, I don't know, forever? A long time. Anyway, I flew on an airplane all day yesterday. It's always challenging for me. Jet lag hits me hard, so couldn't sleep very well last night, up super early, and thought I'd just get this latest podcast out. Who do we have on the show today? We have my buddy Vinny Tortorich. If you're a longtime listener of the show, if you've been with us from the beginning, then you know Vinny. Vinny is the host of the popular podcast, America's Angriest Trainer. He's a training buddy of mine. We get out on the bike quite often and he has been very instrumental in helping me prepare for my Ultraman races. And he's been on the show a couple of times. He's very entertaining

and he is the first person to be making a third appearance on the show. Why are you having him on for a third time? This is only the 38th episode. Well, A, he's super entertaining. And B, he's my buddy and he's a good guy to banter with. But most importantly, C, he has a book that just came out called Fitness Confidential. And I wanted to have him on the show so he could talk about his book. I know from kind of doing this over the last year that writing a book is hard, man. It's really hard. And he was writing his book when I was writing mine. So it's been a longer road for him than it has been for me. And what's even harder than writing a book is getting people to read it or getting people to pay attention to what you're doing. He self-published his book. So it's even more challenging to be in that scenario to try to get people to pay

attention because you don't have a publishing house behind you who's kind of doing some of the marketing. And we're going to talk a little bit about that in this interview. So every little bit that I can do to help my friend spread the word about his book, I can do to help my friend spread the word about his book, I am right there for him. And it's a worthy message. Vinny and I, you may know, we don't see eye to eye on everything. We have our varying perspectives on nutrition. But you know what? He's still my friend and I still want to see him do well. And I have to say that this book is extremely entertaining. It's a page turner. And if you know Vinny, he calls it like he sees it.

He's a no BS guy and that's what you get in the book. Basically, he pulls the covers on the fitness industry, the weight loss industry, and basically sets the record straight from his perspective on what works, what doesn't, all layered in the context of his life story narrative, which is very entertaining and also heartfelt. You know, he's a cancer survivor. He's gone through a lot. He's seen a lot. He's been in town for a long time. And he's done this kind of Hollywood celebrity trainer trip. So the book

reads a little bit like, I don't know, Valley of the dolls, or you'll never eat lunch in this town again meets, uh, uh, meets, I don't know, the skinny rolls. I don't know, some kind of health and fitness book, but it's a page turner. It's a lot of fun to read it. Uh, it's up on Amazon in Kindle and paperback form. And Vinny's going to come in and tell you all about it. So if you want to pick it up, which you should, what do you do? Well, you go to the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com. Click that. Takes you to Amazon. Pick up the book. Pick up whatever else you're going to get. Doesn't cost you a cent extra if you had just gone to Amazon directly, but it throws a few pennies in our jar and is helping us pay the bills to keep this podcast going. I love doing the

podcast. It takes up an extreme amount of my time and we do have some hard costs. And the Amazon banner has been extremely helpful in paying for quite a bit of the expenses of this podcast. So I just want to thank everyone out there who has taken the time to do it. It's been awesome. And I love the fact that people are using it and then tweeting, hey, I just bought something on Amazon.

I used the banner ad. Super cool. And what else? It is going to help cover the cost of hiring a producer who's going to be coming on board to the show pretty soon. Basically, what I do is I record these interviews and I do everything myself. And it takes me about, I don't know, five, four or five hours after I record an interview to post-produce it, get it up, upload it, do the blog post, blah, blah, blah. And it's just, it's too much time, man. So I'm hiring a guy who's going to start handling a little bit of that. And what does that mean for you?

What does that mean for you? Well, hopefully it means that I'm going to be able to get more episodes up because it's going to free my time up to just focus on the interview part of the podcast without having to worry about the other part. So that's good. So look for more regularly uploaded episodes and hopefully more per week. I would love to get it to three a week. I know it's only been like one a week lately. I'm trying hard.

Believe me, we'll get there. What else? T-shirt contest. I made the announcement a couple episodes ago. I was going to be giving away a couple T-shirts to people that posted pictures on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram of them either reading Finding Ultra or listening to the podcast. I got some really great images, super creative and fun, and I'm going to make the announcement very soon on the winners for that.

So stay tuned. I have not forgotten about you. I've just been collecting the entries and need to make this selection and we'll be figuring out that soon. As far as the Plant Power t-shirts are concerned, in about two weeks, we are going to have those available for sale for all the people out there who are like, where can I get that shirt? That shirt is awesome. If you haven't seen it, go to richroll.com. The Hilary Biscay episode, I believe I posted a picture of it also on my Instagram account at Rich Roll. Anyway, yeah, we're going to be having those available very soon. If you want to be the first to get one or you want to pre-order one, we're going to be making that functionality available to you pretty soon. If you want to be alerted as soon as that goes up, the best thing to do is to go to richroll.com and just subscribe to my newsletter by putting your email address in.

We're going to send out an email blast as soon as we're going to put them up for pre-order. And it's going to be first come, first serve. So just because we don't know what the demand is yet uh so it's very possible we'll sell out quickly or out of certain sizes so if you want to make sure that you get yours subscribe and when you subscribe you also get like a seven recipe download for free so not a bad deal. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety.

And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem, a problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com, who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find

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And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. dot com. Let's just get right into it with Vinny. I'm going to go for a run. And while I do that, why don't you listen to Vinny Tortorich and let him call it like he sees it.

Enjoy. When I look out my window, many sights to see. So you find a time to take care of yourself? No. So what's it been like? Are we on mic yet? Yeah, we're going, dude. Put the phone down. Come on.

This is unlike you. I know. Look at me. Yeah, you won't even make eye contact with me. You're all up on the phone. Wait. Wait, hang on. Hang on.

Do you see what I'm doing? This is great. I can't do two things at once. this is great this is great pod yeah yeah wait wait it's going to be great pod in just a second yeah okay so i got vinny in the house we're going to talk about his book which just came out fitness confidential uh vinny you're the first uh i've had one other person as a repeat guest on the show, but this is your third time on the show. I'm in rare. You're almost co-host status.

Jesus Christ. I wouldn't mind being co-host status. Controversial co-host status. What do you mean? You're banging out three of your own. You want to be co-host on mine too? Why not? I'm loving this.

You know, full-time radio guy? Yeah, why not? I can loving this. You know, full-time radio guy? Yeah, why not? You know, I can think of worst things to do. I was just, you know, that's become my life over the weekend. Right. My book is out. You know, we just got our first three-star review from one of my super fans. And we have super fans on the show.

This woman's lost like 80 pounds. She lost 80 pounds and she gave you only three stars well it was an accident because the tweet says hey i gave vinnie five stars and it was the only the only three-star review you know all the reviews have been four and five stars and it's early i know it's early in the process i know you want to feel better go read my one-star reviews. Oh, God, no. They're coming. I know. They always do. Congratulations, man.

It's huge. It's finally out. It's out there burning gas. Yeah, so when did you start writing it? I was writing my book the same time that you were writing your book. When was that? A couple of years ago.

Well, let's see. I wrote it throughout 2011. I think I started it at the end of 2010. Yeah. Early 2011. And yeah, you were working on it then, I know. Yeah, at the same. You got a deal up front.

You put out a proposal or whatever. You know, you did a synopsis and put it out. Right. And got a book deal. We took two different, very different routes. I went the traditional route, which is you get a book agent and you write a proposal and the proposal gets submitted to publishing houses. And a publishing house either decides to buy it or not

and then they own it and you write the book for them and that was the way i did it and you went the other route which i'm really interested in hearing about your experience to date uh the self-publishing route and i just checked i know it just dropped and i've been seeing all the tweets and the retweets about how much people are loving the book. And I checked it out on Amazon the other day. And it was at like 450 or something like that. I don't know what your best Amazon ranking has been so far, but that's pretty freaking good. Yeah, it was about there.

Now, the audience won't know what that means, right? So should we explain? Yeah, so the way it works on sort of every author pays attention to their Amazon ranking. Amazon gives every book a number. One is the best. I think Paula Deen is number one. And there's an algorithm that calculates how well your book is selling. And then it's broken down into categories. So you have your overall Amazon ranking. And I think the highest, my book, I think it went under 100 for like five minutes. And then it was kind of in the 500 range. It was kind of in the hundreds for a while, then the 500s. And it goes up and down. I mean, they change it every hour. So it just depends.

It's like the stock market. It just goes up and down. I know. So you got to get the screen grabs when uh you get the good ranking when you're at the top of your category or whatever in your specific night you got to get a screen grab of that so you save it for posterity i'll teach you how to do that oh yes you do i really don't well you know what your amazon number is so you care at least a little about it that morning dean Dean, my co-author, who's written several books and sold his books to movies and everything else, he said, now listen, he goes, this stuff is going to drive you crazy. You do know it's going to drive you crazy. You start checking it every hour and all that.

I don't, though, because I'm with clients. I don't have the opportunity to check. It's much healthier that way. I said to him, I said, what does it mean to have a high ranking? He said, well, he goes, look at it this way. You have nothing behind you. You know, your book wasn't pre-ordered. Your book doesn't have a big company behind it. You have nothing. So he said, if you get under 10,000, let's just call that a victory. And I said, all right, so the number is below 10,000. He says, if by chance you ever get to 1,000, that's like you blew it out of the water,

like you really killed it. I was like, okay, so 10,000, 1,000, got it. Well, by nine o'clock the first morning, it was at 9,000. And then it was at 7,000. And now I'm watching. Now you're in, you're hooked. Yeah, every client, I was like then it was at 7,000. And now I'm watching. Now you're in. You're hooked. Yeah, every client. I was like, I get out of the client. It's like online poker or something. Yeah, and by that night, it was at 450.

I was like, holy shit, the book is a hit. And then it was. I know. I can attribute that to one action. What was that? Howie Mandel tweeting it. Yeah, that could have easily. Yeah, what it is is

when there's a mad rush on it in a very compressed period of time that will you know put a run on the number is that what it is yeah yeah that's part of it how we went on but no it's it's things it's things like that that mean a lot you know what i mean and and uh things that can convert into sales. And to be at, I mean, for a self-published author with a first book to be under 1,000 in the Kindle store, which means there's only 450 Kindle books that are selling better than yours at that moment, is extraordinary. It's amazing. It's like I had a huge publishing house behind me and all these marketing efforts and blah, blah, blah and a publicist. And, you know, I wasn't any better than that. So it's quite remarkable.

And it's the power of your podcast. And it's developing your own audience that's loyal to you and does the, you know, they're like your own foot soldiers. And they're marketing it for you. And they're enjoying it. And they're getting something out of it. And that's the future. It really is. I read a book five years ago by Jeff Jarvis called What Would Google Do? And I really took that book to task.

And that's kind of when I started doing this whole thing and started thinking about blogging. Because before I wrote anything or had a podcast, I became a blogger. And I didn't even know what the term meant. I just knew I could write sentences and I knew where to throw a comma and where to put a period. Well, maybe. Yeah, sometimes.

Let's not go crazy here. But the blog became popular and that, you know, led me into, you know, eventually the book and then the podcast. Dean was the one that kept reading the blog going, this blog needs to be a book. And he came to me and said, we need to turn this into a book. Meanwhile, the blog got hacked and I never cared to unhack it or to do anything else. I just left it alone and I made it go away. Which was interesting because after we wrote the book, the book that no one wanted us to write, because your agent, I went to your agent first. She got pissed at us.

She wasn't pissed. It just wasn't her cup of tea. I can show you the letter. I mean, it was not. She wrote to Dean and she goes, you, of all people, should know better. What did you think you were doing? It was like she was yelling at us. Wow.

She thought that – I think she had a problem in that first chapter when we were talking about jug robs. She's, you know, well, whatever. I mean, I can understand why it's not her thing. I can understand why you got to work with this woman. Well, yeah, well, yeah, but she, but you know, she was like, you know,

you did the wrong thing. You shouldn't have written this book. You should have just written a proposal and you know, you of all people should know. So that was the first time we got kind of, you know, told, you know,

did you submit, did you, so in other words, you were pursuing a traditional publishing route. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And then, uh, Danielle Shvetkov of something, something, and something, big agency in New York, Levine Greenberg, took the book.

They saw the book. She called me right away. We love this book. Oh, my God, this is going to be a runaway bestseller. Everyone's going to want this book. She goes out to the top 22 traditional big publishing companies, the Simon & Schuster's and the Harper & Collins. And out of 22 companies, we got three companies who came back, which was a lot in that world, to say they wanted to do the

book. But they all had a big butt on it. They wanted me to cut the book in half because they saw it as two books. They said, you know, it's a great memoir and it's a great fitness book. We want you to first write the prescriptive version, give us that. And then when people realize how good you are at this, then we'll put out your memoir and we'll make double money and we'll buy both books up front and dean and i said there's i mean that sounds logical to me that's not like a an insane that's not like insane feedback or anything oh god no that that was hey we'll buy this book if you agree to cut it in half and start writing again and we went uh-uh no no this is the book i just want to put the truth out. I want people to hear the truth.

This is not about some fad. It's not about being a vegan or a carnivore. It's not about any of that. This is the truth about fitness. This is how it works according to everything I've learned over 30 years, including my college education in fitness. And there it is. You can love it. You can love it. You

can hate it. Here it is. I can tell you, for those of you out there, love Vinny or hate Vinny, Vinny's a no BS guy. He calls it like he sees it. And that's exactly what the book is. So if you enjoy his podcast and his sort of style and demeanor of delivery in terms of calling nonsense on what he sees out there, that's what the book is. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Why don't you tell us a little bit

about what people are going to find? Well, it's funny because I've been reading my own reviews. That's the other thing you do is you start reading. Please don't do that. You didn't read your own reviews? Of course I did. I'm trying to spare you. My reviews have been great. Yeah, I know right okay i know that's good somebody's gonna write

but the thing here's the thing and i've said this before on the podcast you're not as good as the great reviews and you're certainly not as bad as the terrible reviews and the reviews uh quite often say a lot more about where that person is than about you or your writing. Absolutely. But the one line in all the reviews so far is exactly what you just said. The book is no BS. It's just the facts. Here's what it is. Take what you want. Don't take what you want. But we spun it into a story, a story about my life, where I started out, how I ended up where I ended up in Beverlyly hills working with celebrities and what happened in between all of that so it's not just one book it's two books as a matter of

fact when when it was trending really high on saturday on saturday it was like number 15 on memoirs being sold right i saw that was the most impressive yeah because that category is you know when when you're in the memoir category you're talking about memoirs of people like you know hillary clinton and yeah like real people yeah you know so dean wrote me and i saw that and i was like wow you're right up there with tina fey and you know i mean yeah that was that was i would have gotten a screen grab of that margaret thatcher and uh jfk yeah and you didn't get a screen grab no see that's what you need i should meet oh you know what i think i got one for you dude if you can send that

to me now he's on his computer we started this podcast with me on my thing and now he's over here please tell me you have that oh no you know i took a screen grab of it at 4.57, but I didn't do it. And then it was, yeah, it says number 15 in bios and memoirs. Right now? I'm 15? No, I took this on Saturday. But you didn't get me between... But I didn't click. I clicked on bios and memoirs and looked at it, but I didn't get a screen grab.

See, I'm not savvy enough to do that. That's where my savvy falls off the chart. It's just, you know, a little memento. I'm not savvy enough to do that that's where my savvy falls off the chart it's just you know a little moment a little little memento get off your phone we're doing the podcast right now i got come on i'm here i'm present all right so you know there's my audience is slowly growing for this thing and it's possible that there's people on that are that are tuning in who didn't hear our first two chats. So why don't you break down a little bit about who you are and what you do. Okay.

My name. Real quick, because a lot of people have already heard you. Yeah. And they're either psyched or they're turning it off right now. I can almost hear people turning off their iPhones right now. I'm going, oh, no, not this jerk again. I've been in the business for a lot of years. The fitness training business.

You know, somehow I ended up with a ton of celebrities. So I got that trainer of the stars thing around me, that halo that so few trainers get, which by the way, doesn't mean anything because their bodies don't work different than any other bodies. It's just that you get that, you know know you become that guy because you work with those people um so i've been working with celebrities for the best part of 20 years i've been doing this for 30

years my degree is in physical education from tulane university and uh college football player college football mountain bike racer turned ultra cyclist yeah yeah that's me and cancer survivor huh and cancer survivor and cancer thank you know more about me than i know about me well that's the nutshell bio and and that by the way is in the book you know the whole cancer story um because i was literally getting ready for a race when we figured out I was almost dead. And that's a chapter in the book is that how can you be riding every weekend, 200, 250 miles to get ready for a 500 mile race. And a doctor calls and says, literally, while I was riding my bike, get off of your bike and take a cab home. literally while I was riding my bike, get off of your bike and take a cab home.

And the reason why was because I had no platelets left in my blood. Had I fallen, I might have bled out and died. Right. And yeah. Your blood work's all good right now though, right? Like brand new. I'm good. It was leukemia.

It was eating me from the inside out. It's a silent killer. I needed chemo right away. So I got off of the bike on a Saturday. On a Monday, I was getting all of the stuff done at Cedars and everything was being, I had a PICC line installed because, you know, to have to, you know, give me all of this chemo. And literally, I was going to my clients on Monday and Tuesday with this PICC line dangling out of my arm saying,, I was going to my clients on Monday and Tuesday with this pick line dangling out of my arm saying, you're not going to believe this, but I need to take a break for a while. You're not going to see me for a good while. I need to go get chemo and I'm going to be out of

it. And then you get this celebrity reaction of the self-involved celebrity reaction of what? What do you mean? Like, I don't have time for your chemo. You have to show up at my house. It really wasn't that, that bad. You know, you would think, but they were all kind of concerned and they all came to visit and they were all, it was really, it was kind of interesting. We have what we ended up calling chemo parties because a lot of people would

show up together and they would start working deals. It was like Hollywood meeting up while I was having chemo parties. It was this crazy thing. It was fun though. Yeah. And how many years ago was that? Let's see. Four or five.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, seven. I had cancer in oh eight. I was cleared. And that year I had failed at the 508 the year before. Right.

You know, in 07. We should clarify failing, because you, this, the Furnace Creek 508 is a 508-mile ultra-cycling race. You ride your bike 508 miles straight through without stopping. 508 miles straight through without stopping. And despite my many attempts at trying to convince Vinny that he should pace himself at this race that he's done several times, he explodes out of the gate and decides he's going to sprint the first 200 miles and hang on. That's your strategy. No, the strategy is, everyone's strategy is, like if you're in the top runners,

everyone wants to get to Trona first. Because Trona is right before. It's at the 170-mile mark. And it's the only place you can get gas. And you don't want to be caught in a pack with all of everyone else trying to get gas. All of the crew vehicles getting gas. And so anyone who's a front runner doesn't want their crew to be caught in that mess so we all go out pretty hard harder than you should go out in an ultra to get that gas at trona so that everyone can refuel but the cyclist goes ahead but you want yeah i mean but what's the

big deal i mean as long as your bottles are full you could go for another you know hour and a half or whatever without without needing your crew van in the desert and it's hot. Not as hot as you're going to be in about two weeks, but it's hot. And you want your guy to be right there. If you get a flat, you don't want to be sitting there while you're waiting for these people back in Trona. So everybody kind of, you know, the top guys try to race to Trona. And it's kind of a silly thing because it's not really that important.

My thing is I race the first 200 miles. I go all out. And every time I've done it, I've gotten to that 200 mile mark in 9 hours and 15 minutes, 9 hours and 30 minutes. You know, it's always under 10 hours. And I don't know why that's become a thing for me is to get there in under 10 hours. I don't know why that's become a thing for me is to get there in under 10 hours. But as soon as you turn the corner on that 200 miles, you're now looking at town pass, which you will be going up the backside of in two weeks. Yeah, I'm crewing at Badwater for Dean Karnazes in two weeks. I've never experienced that race, so I'm intimidated but looking forward to being of service to him.

intimidated and but looking forward to being of service to him but i guess it was 130 it was 130 degrees out at at uh furnace creek this past weekend hopefully you'll get what they call a cool year and i'm doing air quotes it'll be 120 it's not lining up i mean it has been so hot here ridiculous well when i walked in you were just coming from a bike ride you you were still flush no i know today is today it's not nearly as as hot as it's been the last three days it's been easily 110 115 yeah we've had some heat i don't mind the heat do you mind the heat i like it i like it but um i'm not completely acclimated to it because it just kind of happened overnight yeah so we didn't we didn't like lean into it so in terms of training i'm not really used to it yet and it's a little more humid it's really kind of humid and clammy which is unusual for you that's crazy so but you know look if you're going to ride in the heat we both have a friend named jonathan toker who sells a fabulous product that's right and let me do an ad for you. You just sit back. Are you officially slinging for?

No, no. I don't know. He's not a sponsor, but I use his product. The product is Salt Stick. Yeah, Salt Stick. And he tried to figure out something. Are you slinging for him at all? Not officially, but he's a friend and a training partner.

He's a good guy, and he's got the best, the most superior product on the market when it comes to. We advertise this guy for free at least i do yeah i do the salt stick product but look go go to um go to richroll.com do you have a click through i do go to richroll.com go to amazon click through and you will you will we'll first pick up uh fitness confidential for your kindle and then pick up uh some stick, which is essentially an electrolyte supplement. Yeah. And it's pretty much better than any other one out there right now. I haven't found one to come close to.

Jonathan is a scientist. He was at Amgen for years. He studied this stuff, and his product is, you know, it's not candy like some of the other stuff out there. It really isn't. It's the real deal. By the way, Amgen, as you know, is the not candy like some of the other stuff out there. It really isn't. It's the real deal. By the way, Amgen, as you know, is the company that saves my life. I mean, it's a big cancer company.

They make drugs. They make chemo drugs. They make Nupagen, the drug that is the opposite of EPO. It raises your white blood cells. It's what kept me alive while the chemo was killing me. Right, and we told that story on another episode that we did together. We were out riding a couple of years ago. Yeah, we ran.

And we were out and you had just said to me, this is exactly where I was when I got the phone call from my doctor telling me that I had leukemia and telling me to get off my bike and call a cab. You had just told me that. And then we see a guy up ahead wearing an Amgen kit. Like I guess Amgen has its own cycling club or something like that. You see guys around in our area all the time wearing Amgen cycling kits. So you're like, oh, there's a guy from Amgen. You rode up to him and you were chatting and I hung behind. And then I caught up to you a little bit further down the road. And what did the guy say to you? He was the guy that figured out the drug that saved my life.

And we met the guy, as you said, right where I was when I learned I got cancer. Yeah. As a matter of fact, I wasn't told right there. I was told to get off your bike and get a cab. Can you imagine getting a cab from where that is? Yeah. I mean, it's literally up in the Santa Monica mountains in the middle of nowhere.'s there's no no cab you would be able to uber is not picking you up there no cabs would be able to find you no there's no i don't think there's cell service i'm surprised

you got cell service to receive a phone call that's the only place you get cell service that we call it cancer alley now because that's where i learned i had cancer you get cell service right there and if you come down a little bit and go up those you know those little whoop-de-doos to go back yeah mulholland no cell service right there you go so what do you infer from that maybe there is a god or maybe there is a spiritual something or there's something going on you know i don't go with all that stuff but yeah there's something out there i. And to meet that guy that day right there. And do you tell that story in the book? No.

Yeah. Well, you got to write another book. You got to write another book. I can put that in. So let's talk a little bit more about the book. So you were writing it when I was writing my book. So this has been going on for a very long time. And now it's finally out.

Right now it's only out in Kindle, right? No, it's out in Kindle right no it's out in kindle today it's out in kindle and you can get the paper paperback so paper so no hardcover but paperback and kindle but but so is today the first day that it was available on paperback they because i thought it was yeah it was supposed to be released today they released it sometime over the weekend it just showed up okay So it was out there at some point. It got released early. I went through a company called Telemachus Press,

and I guess they have some kind of algorithm they deal with as to how things load in and when it goes up. But today is the official release date of the book. Right. So let's talk about, I mean, you know, basically when I wrote mine, I turned in my manuscript, and then there's all these other people that do all the other stuff, right? You know, they come up with, I mean, of course I look at the cover images and have feedback and, you know, try to get the blurbs for the back cover. And that's a whole thing that took months and months.

But ultimately, like I don't have decision making power over any of that kind of stuff. And there's all these people that do that for a living that just do it. But you had to do all of that. You had to hire a photographer to shoot the cover and design that get somebody to design your cover and put it together and find a company that's going to print it and make it. I know that getting it seems like if you write a book, getting it configured for Kindle is no big big deal but i know it's like it's that's not the case like it's actually like a whole process right like a complicated situation yeah that's what we learned along the way when dean and i because dean has always wanted to do a self-published book because like you you know he's like seven or eight books deep and like me i've only i've written one book he's an author and

like you he so he he never self-published he would always go through right okay with all of the seven or eight books i don't know how many might have have more than that because he's done children children's books also but you know he was like i've always wanted to do this process and what we learned is let's say someone's grandmother wants to write a book tomorrow. She can put it up on Amazon. She can get it on Kindle, but it's going to look Mickey Mouse

because it's not going to have a professional cover. It might have a professional cover. It might not. But if you try to load it in for all the different type of electronic, you know, gadgets, it won't fit. It's going to look mickey mouse and what we learned was in order to do that correctly cost a lot of money like a lot of money

right i mean is yours up on itunes also as an ebook yeah it's an and you did it and you did the audio book too right you use my guy i don't have an audio book oh you didn't i thought that you recorded it with my with zach yeah we decided that we were going to do it if the book sells well, we're going to do it. Otherwise, we're not putting it out. But you recorded it? No. Oh, you didn't? Oh, okay. There's no recording on it yet. But I've been in touch with Zach, the guy that did your book. Right. He's the guy who I did my audio book with. You know, we're going with Zach and if we do it and I'm not convinced yet that I should do it, but I know you want me to do it that way.

Yeah, you should. Dean wants me to do it that way. Everyone wants me to do it that way, but who knows? Well, I mean, part of the, I mean, I read the, I read some of the comments on Amazon and some of the tweets and they're like, it sounds exactly like, when you read the book, it's exactly the way Vinny is on the podcast in a positive way, right? If you want to convey the tone,

if you want to convey the tone that you want people to... I mean, who else is going to rant like you in the way that you... You should hear me read out loud. That's the thing. I mean, everybody... Nobody likes to listen to their own voice. Do you listen to your own podcast?

I can't. There's no way. I won't hear this. I won't either. Believe me. I'm going to record it. I'll put it up, and that's it. You know, people ask me, I was like, have you ever, I listened to one when someone called

me a racist. I went back, I went, we're racist. And I went back and found that podcast. And what I had said was, I would like to see more people of color, that color being particularly black in triathlon and in marathons. And the comment I made was, the only time you see a black man in a marathon is the Kenyan that wins it. Then you got a bunch of white people waddling in behind him.

Yeah, that's a true statement. I don't know if that's entirely true. Yeah, but how many blacks do you know in triathlon? So I looked it up. Yeah, there's not. And part of it is socioeconomic. It's the same reason that until recent years, there haven't been that many black swimmers. It costs money to teach kids how to swim and have them be on a swim team. Absolutely, but why shouldn't it be available to these people? Of course, it should be. It might be me being somewhat Pollyanna, and I know it won't be half and half black-white next year. But after someone called me a racist for saying that, I looked it up.

Do you realize that we still do not have one pro black triathlete in the United States? Is that true? Yeah. This one guy is trying to become the first, and he hasn't had a pro card yet. Yeah, there should be. Well, David Goggins, still my hero. He's my hero, too. The most ultimate endurance athlete ever.

But he's one of one. Right. And he's not a professional either. Exactly. I mean, he's— He's as pro as you're going to get. I guess. I mean, what does that word even mean anymore?

I don't know. It used to mean that you had a pro card you're going to get. I guess. I mean, what does that word even mean anymore? I don't know. It used to mean that you had a pro card. A card, yeah. In ultra sports, there's no pro card. There's no such thing as that. Yeah. So David is about as big and as pro as you would possibly find as far as an ultra athlete.

But how many black ultra athletes have you met? Yeah, not many. You'll be in the desert next week. Count them up. Use one finger. You might be desert actually count them up use one finger you might be able to count them on one finger well maybe they're just less and maybe they're just less insane yeah yeah you might have a point yeah you might have a point but we were talking about the process of doing a book right and we did that thing i do in my show you're doing my

show now where you go off and we go off in 20. Or am I going off? I'm not doing anything. I'm just going with the flow. The good thing about having you on the show is it requires zero preparation. Yeah, there's no notes. I literally texted you last night. I was like, hey, let's do a podcast.

Your book's out and I'm leaving town. It's got to be tomorrow. And I just got off my bike and took a shower and came in here and really didn't. No prep. No, I don't have to. Well, I mean, I know you. What are you going to prep for me?

Well, you have your own show. You know how to do a podcast. So the book, but let's talk about the book. Well, you know, we did that. We spent the money to get it done for all of the different Kindle and know kindle and ibook and uh you name them you know them better so you could get it any which way that way we also have a a paper bag we decided not to go with the hardcover because that's another whole cost and who cares the words are the words so we we did that but that had to be formatted a different way. And you're right. We had to go in and shoot the cover.

And you don't know this about me, but I hate having my picture taken. And when the guy goes, okay, just a couple more shots. I went, ah, and I did that. And that became the cover of the book. Yeah, I love the cover. It's great. You know, because it was over with. Yeah, it fits your personality perfectly.

Yeah, and it looked interesting. And, you know, that's the cover. And now we're into the marketing phase. Which is crazy. And believe me, like I thought when I was done, I was like, I can breathe now. Like now I can get back on my bike and, you know, get some fresh air and, you know, kind of enjoy just the idea that, you know, you wrote a book

and feel proud of it and it's out there now. And I completely underestimated how much work it was. I mean, it's sort of like you spent all these years writing this book and, of course, you want people to read it and you've got to carry that mantle, which means you've got to be pretty shameless in your you know promotional efforts and you walk this fine line because it's almost embarrassing you know to you

know and i've seen you retweeting all that kind of stuff and it's like you know it's sort of like after a while but you have to you have to do it and for me it became like you know sort of trying to get the word out and i just said said yes to everything. Like anybody that contacted me and said, Hey, can I, will you, can you, can I interview you for my blog? You know, I just said, yes, I didn't even, you know, and I just was doing that all the time. I was like, whatever I can do to get the book out, I did all this work, you know, I just want people to see it. And it became very overwhelming and, and you have to make sure that you maintain your equilibrium. That's where, you know, it's just the first weekend and Serena and I had zero life. It was

just me constantly doing this and on the computer and, you know, in between clients. I mean, as soon as I came down from, you know, we did a 15 mile hike. As soon as I came down, you know, it was right back on this, you know, this meaning the phone, the iPhone. It just becomes overwhelming and you can't not do it. You know? Yeah, I know. You've spent all the time on the book. It becomes your job. It do it. Yeah, I know. You've spent all the time on the book. It becomes your job.

It really does. And the wild thing is that three years ago, you and I are out riding every day. You're training for 508. I'm training for Ultraman. That's all we were focused on. That's all we were talking about. And now here we are doing podcasts and talking about books and not writing as much. Can't you just see yourself being out there just doing what we were doing three years ago again?

I mean, wouldn't that be great? I could. Well, the, you know, sort of, uh, you know, the, the sort of, um, you know, my life has gotten really big and that's, I'm very grateful for that. I have a lot of opportunities. I've got a, you know, I've got four kids. I've got a lot of responsibility. And it's all awesome stuff that I've worked hard for and I appreciate very much and wouldn't trade for anything. But the sort of fantasy that I have from time to time is like, oh, if I just lived in like a hut, you know, somewhere like Ted Kaczynski style and just had my bike and just would train all day my nephew it's funny you should bring up kaczynski because my nephew and i talk about being ted kaczynski all the time minus the bombs by the way just right moving out just like being montana like walt whitman yeah yeah i think most guys dream that, but most guys won't admit it. I don't know.

I think a lot of guys dream about, you know, if I could just, you know, drive a fancy car and play golf and belong to the club. Do you really think most guys really? I think, don't you think? Let me ask you this. I don't know. I don't know what other guys think. Well, let's talk about that. That's an interesting subject.

Your life is on the upswing right now. You have a lot of good things happening. You have the opportunity to make a lot of money when you make a lot of money, or if you have a lot of money, do you go and join a country club? I don't see Rich Roll at a country club playing golf. I don't see me at a country club playing golf. I mean, it's just not what we do. No, not at all. I mean, I don't think that I would change. I wouldn't change anything that I'm doing already. You know, I would just, I would just keep doing what I'm doing now. And I think that's a good arbiter of whether you're happy in life or on the right trajectory for you. Like I don't feel the need to go on vacation

because I don't need a break from my life because I enjoy what I do when I wake up every day. And some days are better than others. And it's been very hard. It's been a very, very challenging last couple of years. I mean, you've taken on more, right? Yeah. I'm not like, by the way, it's not like I'm making all kinds of money. I'm trying to figure out how to support my family doing this so I don't have to go back and be a lawyer. And I can't say that I haven't figured out yet. I've got some ideas about that, but it's still a struggle.

And I'm trying to hold onto this idea of how to continue to, um, you know, basically be an ambassador for a healthy message and still be responsible to my family. That that's the balance, you know, that, and that's what we're always trying to figure out. Because Serena went from, when she was at the top of her game acting, work was work, and she made a lot of money, and she didn't have to work all year long. But now you're at 51 years old, we're all working. I mean, we're working harder than we've ever worked in our life. Oh, yeah. I work way harder now than I ever did as as a lawyer yeah work starts when i wake up and then you know and sometimes i don't go to bed until three or four in the morning

it just never ends and then i'm like what did i even do i don't even know that's what i know it's the crazy thing i mean sometimes i'll look around and go okay i'm sitting at this computer we're on hour number four i'll just stop walk away go away, go to the gym, and get on a rower or get on the stair climber I love. Or sometimes I'll just stay in my office, put on some chamois, and just get on the bike and just spend for an hour. Otherwise, you do nothing. You do nothing physical. I'm so ready for this to be over with, to get back to what we were doing three years ago right you have no idea but the thing the thing that i realized just you know because i'm fast

forward a year because i'm a year further down this road than than you are the thing that you realize is that that idea that it's going to be over and you're going to get back to your life that's a that's a fallacy oh boy do you think yes there is no end point and it's not going to get back to your life. That's a fallacy. Oh boy, you think. There is no end point and it's not going to be over. So it's about trying to find a way to incorporate balance into your life now. Because it's going to be with you and it's just going to continue to build. So finding a way to attend to what you need to attend to, to continue to put the word out and, you know, build on what you've created, but also take care of yourself. And, you know, I definitely had times where I lost sight of that because I was like, well, it'll be over soon. And I've, I have this precious moment of time and I really need to capitalize on it because it will pass. And that was the, that's what I,

that was what my mantra that I kept and so it's like it's okay if i'm not doing all this other stuff or taking care of myself because it's it's this is fleeting and uh you know it's a year later and i'm still kind of doing what i was doing last year at this time are you still going going out and doing uh book stuff and doing all that yeah i'm leaving tomorrow i'm going to i'm going to pittsburgh tomorrow to i'm doing a lot of speaking. So I go to like the summer and the fall, there's a lot of veg fests. So I go to those and I give a talk and I sign books and all that kind of thing. And then all different other kind of speaking engagements are coming up. So that kind of road tour continues.

You know, that's funny you should bring that up. I just agreed to two speaking engagements, you know, prior to the book, based on the podcast. Because the podcast became its own thing in the past year. Right. And for those who don't know, America's Angriest Trainer on iTunes. And it doesn't mean I'm angry, folks. I'm upset because your good intentions have been stolen. Get the book. You'll see it in there. Go listen to the podcast. But the podcast has taken on its own life and i'm i just agreed to a speaking engagement in amsterdam next year

oh wow yeah it's like because of the podcast or what podcast yeah there's some guy from england has this big company and he wants me to go do a motivational speech oh that's great man to his people you know they do a thing once a year and they're paying for me to go to amsterdam and they're paying me to do the talk we need to talk about the air do you have some kind of set fee or something or we'll talk about that after the air no i look i've done a lot of stuff for free you know yeah um but we'll yeah we can talk off air about that but that's great man and i can tell you this like um when i do these speaking gigs and i meet people they're, I would say nine out of 10 people or maybe seven out of 10 people are like, oh, the podcast, the podcast, the podcast. I mean, it's like, wow. Like, I didn't, you know, you don't realize that it's impactful, man. So it's cool. You got to keep doing it but that means you're making a difference i mean think about it we're sitting here in a garage making a difference you know that's kind of well it sounds self-aggrandizing to say it that way no but it is but i mean people look not everyone has

your knowledge and they listen to you and now they know and they can go with that that's a real thing yeah i hope so you know i mean my my thing is you know i've been blessed i'm grateful for this experience that i've had over the last couple years and i've had the opportunity to meet a lot of cool people and the podcast is a platform for me to bring those people on and share those people's knowledge with everybody else out there because i've learned from these people and everybody else should too. And it's not about this is my way or the highway. It's like, hey, here's a perspective that's worth listening to, agree or disagree. But it's valuable enough to spend a couple hours on a podcast talking about it.

That's all you can do. Yeah. And that's what we try to do too. I mean, we could sit here and, you know, we talk about this all the time. I can argue about being a plant-based athlete and you can talk no sugar, no grains, and we can go around that merry-go-round until we're blue in the face, you know, and you're going to still think the way that you think. And I'm going to think the way that I think. And there's a lot of, there's, we disagree on a couple of fundamental things, but there's also a lot of truth and a lot of there's we disagree on a couple fundamental things but there's also a lot

of truth and a lot of what you're saying that i agree with completely so you know we can be friends and there's all this kind of internet angst about like pitting people against each other and creating all these sort of like against each other oh of course and that but we go way back that's never gonna happen i mean we're, we're friends. Remember we did Ben Greenfield? We did a three-way. Oh, the spree cast with Ben, yeah. Yeah, that was supposed to be us duking it out. Well, Ben was like, hey, let's all do a spree cast.

We'll do a nutrition spree cast. I said, great, cool. And then it was like, oh, they're going to have a big knockdown drag out. And I was like, what? I didn't know. And I told Serena right before I went on the air, I went, I'm not going to hammer Rich. Rich is not going to hammer me. So this is going to be a boring thing.

But I think some good came out of the whole thing because it was three guys, three different opinions. They're all out there and people can hear them all at the same time. It had to be a good thing, right? I mean. No, I think it is. And for those of you who missed it uh it's archived and i have it embedded on my site so i'll put a link up in the show notes to that so you can

go check it out i think we talked for like an hour yeah the three of us so we took questions and yeah yeah so so all right so amsterdam that's cool i'm looking forward to it and now there's some talk to go do something at a company in New York. New York. New York. New York. That's the way the woman who called me. Tara.

Tara. I couldn't figure out if her name was Tara. Tara. But we were talking about that. And there's a few other things coming up. And it's all because of the podcast. Yeah. Well, it's, you know, a funny thing happened the other day.

Brett Blankner, Zen Triathlon, you know, the host of the Zen and the Art of Triathlon podcast, who I introduced you to, by the way, when you were starting your podcast, I was like, Oh, you should talk to Brett. He's been doing it forever. He probably has some tips and guidelines that might help you. And that was long before I started mine. Um, he texted me the other day. He's like, Hey, I'm coming to L I'm going to be in LA, you know, next week to do Vinny's podcast. You other day. He's like, Hey, I'm coming to L I'm going to be in LA, you know, next week to do Vinny's

podcast. You know? And I was like, I was wondering if I could come by and say hi. I was like, I was like, what? You're going to, you're coming here. Yeah. You're coming here specifically to do Vinny's and like, you're letting me know, like he's over the moon to meet you.

I think he's like, you're like a rock star, you know? He's so excited. His wife is cute too. Have you seen his wife? Oh, yeah. I've been at their house in Texas. I was a guest coach at two of his training camps that he did. Oh, cool.

Yeah, he's a mensch. I mean, he's a Boy Scout. Super nice guy. And he's been doing his podcast for years and years. He was like one of the first guys. Yeah, he's like early adopter and he's stuck with it you know there's been a couple other triathlon related podcasts over the years but they've come and gone i mean the only other ones are i am talk i think and then

bob babbitt does competitor radio there's probably a couple others out there i'm doing something coming up um do you know um praise act tawny praise act yeah oh yeah and you're doing endurance planet yeah i saw her tweet she really enjoyed the book yeah yeah yeah so i did her i did that endurance endurance planet podcast when my book came out so i interviewed i did an interview super nice girl yeah that'll be great she's a great triathlete too i want to start listening to that it sounds like a pretty good podcast i haven't had a chance to listen to it. Yeah, they do.

They just interview endurance athletes and all different kinds of people. You had Macca on recently, right? Yeah, like, I don't know, two months ago or something maybe. I haven't heard that one yet. No, it's classic. You got to listen to that one. Everyone keeps saying, have you heard the Macca one? It's like, no, I got to go back. I missed it. Because when you miss one, you don't go back. You go forward.

Right. No, that's one worth checking out. That was a good time one. Definitely my – that's the most downloaded one. That one? Yeah. Yeah. For obvious reasons.

He just got a book. But he's out of his country right now, right? He's always on the road. I mean, he's traveling. I think he's been – oh, I think he'sdney now um but he was in malaysia i think no i think he's still in malaysia because i think he's back now i think i saw a tweet yesterday or today that he was in in sydney okay i just sent a book to his people he's got people unlike you and me he's got oh dude just all right we can talk about that off air. I can get it to him directly, easily.

Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. But his guy, Scott Fairchild? That was the guy, yeah. Okay. Yeah, he'll get it. So can you let him know that Scott, you know, has, you know, fitness confidential and, you know.

No problem. So where's this all heading, Vinny? What are you doing here? I have no idea. You said come in, so here I am. No, but I mean like where, like the book, like where's, what's the, like what's the plan? What's the long game? Yeah.

Interesting, because I don't know. That's a good place to be. You know, Dean is already talking about another book. As a matter of fact, Danielle Shvetkov, who I mentioned earlier, the agent who was behind this book, she came up with a book that I should do based on this book. So we're talking about that. I'll probably do the same thing I did this time. I'll write the whole book, and you can either love it or hate it.

We'll see. Another book is actually in the works. We're talking about it. Are you writing yet? Are you back? I'm working on it. I'm working on the second one. Are you liking it?

Well, I'm just I mean, I don't have like a book deal for the second one, but I'm working on ideas for what I want it to be. Of all people, my agent who had the book taken away from her came up with the idea. And, uh, I didn't know if Dean wanted to work on it. I don't know if I was going to do it myself this time. You know, I just don't know yet. Right. So we'll see. And I'm definitely going to write again.

Good. That's good. So, uh, all right. So we've been talking about all this book stuff and all the people tuning in are like health and fitness people. They're not book writers, so maybe they're bored. So let's talk about – I want to talk about what's in the book a little bit. Like, you know, give me a few morsels of some of the no BS kind of truth that you lay out. The first chapter actually goes into,

you ever read when you read self-help, like your book did, I love the way your book opened. You know, you were on that race, you know, and you know, you get right into, holy shit,

you know, you were ready to just camp out, you know, just get out of this race because something bad happened. And your book opens like a Bond movie. You know, you're in the middle of it. And then you go back and tell us the story.

And I learned things about you that I didn't know. I learned about your first wife. I had no idea. I mean, to be able to write those words were amazing. My book opens in a different way. Whenever you're being held up as an expert, so to speak, on a subject, or if you're going to write a book, you're calling yourself basically an expert on something. Every one of these people always do it the same way. They spend the first chapter explaining who

they are, or at least a preface. You know, my name is Dr. So-and-so, I got a PhD from so-and-so, and I did this with that, that, that, that, that, that, that. And you have to sit there and read that crappy piece of material so that you can go, okay, this guy is the dude. Legit, right. You know, I hate those chapters. I hate those prefaces. I hate reading those.

So the whole time we were writing the book, we didn't have a first chapter. And I was dreading because, you know, people think that I sat there and talked to Dean and Dean wrote a book. We actually sat there together and wrote a book. And, you know, he would write and I would write and we would come together and go, OK. And then, you know, I would write and he would write. And no, that's not good. And that's not good.

We were both dreading that first chapter where we would have to explain to people why you should be listening to me. And we didn't know how to do it. And so one day Dean said, you know, that chapter 12 you wrote, we can make that chapter one. And I went, yeah, but how do he goes? It explains it in the chapter. You know, the first chapter opens up with me in a Hollywood meeting. I was down at Gallin Mori. I don't mention that in the book, but I'll mention it here.

And this was back when Sandy Gallin was like the biggest, you know, you know. Yeah, I know who he is. Why don't you tell people who he is, though, for. Sandy Gallin was a manager that he had Gallin Mori and he had Sand Dollar with Dolly Parton. And it was it was probably the biggest firm of its kind. It was a management firm of big talent. And back in the day, meaning the early 90s, they had Michael Jackson, they had Dolly Parton,

they had Roseanne Barr had the biggest sitcom on the air. They had the biggest talents in the world. I think they had Andrew Dice Clay. They had some of the biggest people. It's like in the 80s. Yeah, they were huge. And they were getting ready to, one of their big stars,

one of their up-and-comers was getting ready to do a sitcom. If you remember in the early 90s, there was like, what, 40 some odd sitcoms on the air? Right. And these things were big money. And I mean, people became

almost billionaires off of sitcoms yeah well if you do a sitcom and it it lasts uh for more than 100 episodes it goes into syndication and and essentially it just starts printing money and you have an annuity for the rest of your life and you never have to work yeah like to give an example, something like Everybody Loves Raymond. Those guys are worth. Oh, it's huge. Yeah. Phil Rosenthal, who created that show, co-created it, I mean, lives like a king. Yeah.

And also Raymond, who's a co-creator on it, lives pretty. Even the guy I trained, you know, the other guy, the big tall guy, my client, I can't think of his name. Brad Garrett. Brad Garrett is living like a king and he didn't own a part of the show. He was just a paid actor on the show. These people... Because it went into syndication. Yeah, and they did 10 years of...

That was a very different era in television. Now, you know, this sort of market share that you need to stay on the air is such a fraction of what it used to be when it was just... I mean, the audiences that these sitcoms got in the eighties and nineties before there were, you know, 2000 channels were huge. So the ad, the ad money generated by them was just astronomical. So that's what we were up against.

You know, they had a problem and they were looking at me to solve it. So I'm sitting in a room, like I got called in. I don't even know. I got there because a friend of a friend suggested this guy knows how to take weight off of someone really fast. I became overnight the quick weight loss guy in Hollywood. And I was dressed like you see me here. OK. okay t-shirt turned inside out no it just looks like it's turned inside out so i got a crappy torn t-shirt on i got shorts i'm in flip-flops today i have tennis shoes i think i have flip-flops on that day i go into sandy gallon's building they usher me into a meeting it was one of those long tables you know a big oval table in a conference room and sandy gallon sitting at the head of the table in a Brioni suit. And this guy from Disney and that guy from that. It's a room full of suits and there are people around the suits.

And I'm sitting there in T-shirt shorts and flip flops trying to figure out why I'm there. And they're all looking at me. And then one of the guys, I think it was the showrunner from the show. He goes, so we hear that you're the, you're the go-to guy to get weight off of people. And I went, all right, if you say so, I'm that guy. All right. And he goes, can you take 30 pounds off of someone? And I said, well, that depends. And when I said that depends, the whole room went, oh shit, we have a problem. And Sandy Gallen says, depends on what? I said, depends on if the person has 30 pounds to lose. And they all started talking amongst themselves. It was like, it was the most surreal day of my life. And then finally someone spoke up, an attorney spoke up and said, old day of my life right and then finally someone spoke up an attorney spoke up and said well we think so i said okay if he or she has 30 pounds to lose i can do that that's what i do and they

said good you have the job you have five weeks to do it or six weeks to do it and i went wait a minute no no you don't do this i mean you guys understand that's not you know it's dangerous you know 30 pounds that fast i mean is it a man is it sounds like a weird scene out of like a coen brothers movie or something it was kind of like that and they were like i was like who is this person this person shrouded in secrecy and the whole thing and i'm i'm talking and starting to sweat because i'm realizing and while i'm doing that sandy gallon is staring at me as only he could and he takes a piece of paper and he writes something on the paper and he slips it to his assistant who slips

it to me and i open it up and it says ten thousand dollars six weeks and i looked at it and went okay i'm your guy i'm your guy you know i became a money whore you You sold out just like that. How long had you been in town? How old were you? I was early 30s. I'd been in town for like a year. My business had just started because my business was huge in New Orleans. But when I got here, I didn't know anyone. My business had just started cropping up.

I was working with a few playmates over at Playboy because they need to keep them in shape because they put them on tour and I was getting a a few playmates over at Playboy, you know, because they need to keep them in shape because they put them on tour and I was getting a check from them. So somehow the word got out that I can work with celebrities and I can get them to lose weight. And there I was. And that started the whole thing. And I took not only 30 pounds off of the woman, but they wanted me to take another portion of weight off of her and

wrote me another check before they actually, they held the sitcom while I went back and worked with her. And that's when my career kind of took off. You know, my name was on a tonight show. My name was on Arsenio Hall back in the day, you know, all the nighttime guys, she was going on all the shows. This is the guy, this is the the man and my career just took off right there and that that was the beginning of it well and so kind of looking at that from the perspective of the you know this sellout like well yeah i'll take 30 pounds off her i don't i don't care if she has 30 pounds to lose or not i mean how is that you know when i i contrast that with your kind of no bs approach to how you do things now. I mean,

what is the evolution of that perspective? You know, what happens is when you get to the last chapter of the book, I go back to that story and talk about my colossal failure with this actress, because I talk about it. It's clear in the book. I, I felt like a failure because I didn't teach her anything. I went for the money. You know, I didn't let that go in the book. I felt like a failure because I didn't teach her anything. I went for the money. I didn't let that go in the book. I didn't just tell that story so that people can go, oh, this guy is a Hollywood guy.

At the end of the book, I wrap it all up and say, look, at the beginning of the book, I told you a story about this woman that I took all this weight off of, but I feel like a colossal failure because I didn't teach her anything. I gave her a colossal failure because I didn't teach her anything. You know, I didn't, you know, I didn't, I gave her a fish. I didn't teach her how to fish. And had I, you know, that was the big takeaway for me was you can't just do this to people. You know, that's not right. Yeah. She was in it for the big money.

She just wanted to lose the way to do her sitcom. But at the end of the day, that's not who I am. And that's when I realized that you can't just sell out to Hollywood. You got to either do this right or don't do it at all. And that was a big lesson for me. And that was a defining moment for me not to ever do that again. And I've never done that again. And I think that's why people are connecting to this book and liking this book, because the end of the book comes with an apology to, hey, I fucked up. I really screwed up, you know, and I didn't like myself because of it. And that's, you know, sitting here today, that still bugs me about that actress. And so when you work with clients today, like, you know, some of the people that you work with, whether they're celebrities or the every person, I mean,

what are the, you know, speaking to that idea of teaching them how to fish? I mean, what are some of the things that, you know, are fundamental kind of tools that you help them kind of incorporate into their lives? I teach more. I don't just, you know, most trainers, kind of the trainer system is not much different than, you know, ski instructors. Ski instructors, when you go to a resort, they realize that they're going to have you for a couple of days and they turn you and burn you. Trainers will do the same thing. They'll just go in, try to get you to lose some weight. At some point you become, you know, disenchanted with this hero of a trainer, and you go find another trainer. I take great pride in the fact that most of my clients that I have have been with me 10 years, 12 years.

The woman I'm going to see this afternoon has been with me for, well, she was six months old when I started training her mother. I trained her brother, who I write about in the book, and she's 22 now. I've been training her for 16 years. These people keep you year in and year out because you're teaching them. You're teaching them about eating. You're teaching them about diet. You're teaching them about lifestyle. But shouldn't somebody have learned that in 16 years?

You know what I mean? It's sort of like you go to therapy to get well, but do you do it for your whole life? You do it so that you can put an end to it. That's why I don't have you going in to talk to my clients. I don't, you know what i mean it's sort of like you go to therapy to get well but do you do it for your whole life like you do it so that you can put an end to it that's why i don't have you going in to talk to my clients you know you couldn't get the point across in a couple years they got us they love 16 years they love you know they i guess some people just need that you know like you know how is the only celebrity we talk about because we hang out together and people see us out together so we talk about him um and he did the forward for my book and the whole thing you know and he looks great by the way we said

that we talked about on the other podcast but he's looking really healthy 58 now that guy looks he takes his shirt off he looks like a teenager and you know he he gives me the credit for it but he pays attention and does the work and pays attention to his diet and he also puts a little life into living you know he does the whole thing and i train other people in this family you know his daughter's getting married end of this month you know or until wedding you know you become family with these people right Or until wedding year, you become family with these people. Right. It's that sort of thing. So you're not looking to transcend this.

Like you want to keep training. That's your primary thing, no matter what, right? Oh, absolutely. Jonathan, our mutual friend, Jonathan Goldhill, yesterday he was looking at the numbers and he was like jesus christ what if this becomes a thing what if you become a thing what if you and i said well that would be great but i would never stop doing what i'm doing this is what i do i'm a teacher that's all i really do you know all right so an author so here's one for you all right so speaking to this i'm in trouble

yeah no i just thought of this so speaking to this idea of uh you know this apology fitness confidential you know you're this sort of confidential apology or this idea of selling out and atoning for that so so let's just let's play it out like Let's say the book kills it, sells a ton, and gets on the radar of the powers that be, and they're like, hey, biggest loser of season 85 is coming up, and we're looking for some new blood. Why don't you come on down? Wouldn't do it.

Wouldn't do it. Wouldn't do it. Huge paycheck. Big paycheck. Wouldn't do it. Because that would be a sellout. Primetime TV. That would be a sellout. it wouldn't do it wouldn't do a huge paycheck big paycheck you know because that prime time tv that would be a sellout that is yeah so there so that that is like that's sort of the penultimate kind of trainer platform it would be tough but it would be you know we talk about that on my podcast

you know if coca-cola if gatorade which is coca-c, came to me and said, look, Vinny, we know you're no sugars, no grains, but here's a million bucks. Put it in your pocket. Pitch our sugar product. I couldn't do it because at that moment, I lose my integrity. Of course. You know. It's all about integrity and authenticity. Now, if a show came like Biggest Loser and said, OK, it's you versus Jillian. What is Jillian Michaels? It's you versus Jillian.

You do your method and she'll do her method. And we want you, you know, we'll watch you do your method, but that'll never happen. They have a formula. They gonna, they would want me to do their formula within the show. I wouldn't do it. You know, uh, Bob Harper just wrote a book, the other guy on that show. Right. Skinny rules, right? He's telling people to eat nothing.

Yeah, I haven't read the book. Well, pieces and parts came to me. I mean, that's a sellout. That guy is selling out. I don't care how genuine he thinks he's being. He's being disingenuous. He's lying to people and he knows he is. Or if he doesn't know he is, that's fine

too. That's almost better if he doesn't know he's selling out. But these people are selling out to sell books. I won't do it. In my heart of hearts, I can't do it. So what makes the message of your book different and not selling out? That's an interesting question. Namely, I don't pull any punches. And you'll see that in the reviews. The guy just doesn't pull punches. He tells you like it is. That book, if any advertiser reads that book, they'll realize they can never get me to sell anything.

You know, the book pulls no punches. I call a spade a spade. You know, back, we were talking about back in the day. Back in the day, I got offered more infomercials or fitness products than probably anyone else in town because they figured, hey, this guy can walk and talk and chew gum. You know, he looks half decent. He's got a great looking body. Let's hook him to a product. I did one when I first moved to town and that's when I learned I should never do this again. What was it? It was called

the Body Plus. It was called the Gladiator. Remember the Gladiators were a big show back in 91. I do remember that show. The Gladiator Body Plus Fitness Machine and I was their model. They had me without a shirt on all oiled up and there was smoke machines and I'm doing this a half an hour infomercial.

And I did that thing. As a matter of fact, great story behind that. I was new in town, and I was doing a lot of that to make money. I didn't have clients yet. This was even before the Gallin Mori thing. And I'm in town. I give this job. It was a company called Real2Real.

I'll never forget the guy. Packy McFarlane was the guy who did this. He was down in the San Diego area. So I get the job to be the body plus fitness guy and I lost my train of thought of what I was going to tell you about the body plus fitness machine. We were talking about the infomercial and being new in town. And this is before the gallon meeting. Yeah. Okay. So I get the job. I do the ad.

They used to give awards for these infomercials, like the best infomercial of the year and this and that and the whole thing. This infomercial became a big thing. And it was everywhere. They played it around the clock on cable everywhere. So I was new in town. I didn't know any women. And I was living in Santa Monica at the time in Brentwood. And Third Street Promenade was just kind of becoming a thing. And they had a movie theater down there.

And I would go on Saturday nights and I'd watch a movie by myself because I didn't know anyone. And after the movie, I would go there was a sports bar. I'd go get a burger or something. I'd sit there at the bar because I didn't know anyone. And one night, it was getting pretty late. I saw the late movie. The street was kind of closing down. I walked into

this bar to get a burger. I'm sitting there and there's these two fairly hot chicks who are sitting next to me. As a matter of fact, to be honest with you, I positioned myself next to these hot chicks, hoping to get a conversation started. Well, since the bar was clearing out, you know, the bartender turns out he knew the girls. They were talking about, hey, we'll go hiking next weekend. We'll do this. We'll do that. And in the middle of all that he says uh one of the

girls said won't you turn the channel and he gave them the clicker and they started flipping through the channel up on the big screen and they go past my infomercial and one of the girls says to the other girl wait wait go back go back you need to see this guy so they go back one channel and i look up and i see that it's me on the screen and they start having a conversation and one of those guys pretty hot and the other girl goes yeah but you know all those hot guys they're always gay and she said he doesn't look gay i don't know they were having the is he gay conversation and i'm sitting there going this is my ticket yeah this is your cue is like now jesus christ somebody's getting laid tonight and it looks like it might be me you know i'm like i'm getting all excited about this you know it's like so as you know i never

look good i always have a i need a five-day growth you and i look we have the five-day growth my hair is all matted up. I got a baseball cap on. I got clothes. I have revealing clothes on. And I got this big sweater on. And I said to the girl, I said, hey, you see that guy up there? She goes, yeah.

I said, that guy is me. And they both look at the screen. And they both look at me. And they look back at the screen. And one of the girls said, yeah, me. And they both look at the screen and they both look at me and they look back at the screen and one of the girls said, yeah, right. No, no, no. You don't understand.

Look, they keep saying, Finney, look, my name is Vincent. I'm pulling my wallet. I couldn't convince these women any way which that was me up on the screen. It was just too shocking and unbelievable, Finney. So, I mean, that's sort of like being new to town and having that happen. So you're like, yeah, it's all right.

But that led me to believe not to become that guy that shows for other people. I learned a lot of lessons. I mean, you've been out here for a long time, too. You were an entertainment attorney. I mean, there's a lot of big money, a lot of big deals that come along. You can't just take every single one of them. No, there's actually very few that you can take. Yeah.

You know, and most stuff doesn't work out anyway. Yeah. You know, as an entertainment lawyer doing, I represented directors and writers and producers, mostly in independent film projects. directors and writers and producers, mostly in independent film projects. And, you know, I've done maybe 200, 300 option deals where people option a script or option a book, you know, to develop it into a movie. And out of all of that, maybe three movies got made.

That's crazy, right? I mean, yeah, or just putting movie deals together like all day long, but you become jaded because you're like, this is never going to be a movie. You know what I mean? Like most times it's not. And it's the rare miracle when everything lines up and something actually turns into a viable project. So it's hard not to get like sort of like pessimistic about all that kind of stuff when you've been here for a while. But a lot of the option money is gone now, right? right i mean they don't option as much as they used to well you still have

to you still have to sew up rights it's just a question of how much money gets paid for that yeah so you know it's not as much i mean you know with the conglomeration of all the major studios uh making fewer and fewer movies and only interested in franchise material and what Marvel and DC Comics are doing, that's really squeezed out the sort of adult independent feature market for like serious dramas. But everything ebbs and flows.

So it goes away. The money dries up for those kinds of movies. There isn't a place for that. And then there's a reaction. And I think it's starting to come back a little bit now but you know it's a it's interesting to watch yes you're not gonna ever go back into it were you i mean you well my you know i enjoy doing it but you know i feel it doesn't give me the feeling that, that doing what I'm doing now does. So the trick is trying to find a way to, to, uh, like I said, support my family doing this, but also stay authentic to the

message. I mean, I'm certainly not going to, not that it's been offered, but if it, if it ever was, you know, to like take money from Coca-Cola or Gatorade, of course not. Right. So how do you, take money from Coca-Cola or Gatorade? Of course not, right? So how do you sort of responsibly find ways to earn without undercutting or undermining your authenticity in the message that you're trying to promote, right? And when you're trying to promote a no BS message, And when you're trying to promote a no BS message, that thins the herd. You know what I mean? It's like you can't. You're absolutely right. You can't.

There are very few deals that you can do. And those deals aren't going to be the big money deals because the big money deals are the deals that involve you selling out and promoting a message that is not in alignment with what got you to the place in the first place to be able to get the deal right you're right so i'm not you you and i are talking the same game we're not going to walk away from our messages no i'd like to just find a way to do the podcast three times a week and you know and yeah have it turn into a sustainable source of income through responsible advertising that doesn't dominate it. So and then we could just continue to use the microphone to promote our respective messages. Do you think it's possible?

Because you're talking when I'm thinking. See, my thing is I want to train people from six in the morning until three or four in the afternoon and then call it a day. I don't want to work until 10 o'clock anymore. I'm 51 years old this year. And I'd love to stop doing the nighttime stuff. I'd like to have a life. I'd like to see Serena from time to time.

And I keep saying, if I could just make enough money to do that and make it sustainable, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Right. Well, you're getting there. Yeah. Let's hope. You're getting there. Let's hope.

The podcast, man. Double down on that. Yeah, let's hope. You're getting there. Let's hope. The podcast, man. Double down on that. Invest in that. Do six a week. No, but I mean just, you know what I mean? Keep doing it. I am. People thought that as soon as the book came out, I would stop.

The podcast has become its own thing. Yeah. You know, we just recorded number 151. Oh, my God. 151 episodes already? When did you start? One year ago. A little over a year ago. Only a little only a year ago yeah so 151 that's this year oh my god but you see that's like one every other day yeah almost but that's you know that's me going balls to the wall 200 miles you know for the

first 200 miles of a race that's that's how head works. That's why I don't drink heavily because I would be the world's biggest alcoholic. That's why I've never smoked a joint because I would smoke every joint. Yeah. Well, I know what that's like. So I just, that's why I don't do anything. I just, I, my brain just goes, okay, you're doing this? Do it. There is no cutoff valve, is a problem yeah well that's

that's that's a frequent sort of subject of discussion on this podcast is how and it's a challenge of mine as well because listen you don't do ultraman or or furnace creek 508 if you're if you're like an even keeled person you know you're prone to extremes you're you have a certain ability to become obsessive about a certain task or goal that that is important to you and that's what drives you and that's what makes you excel at what you do or be able to follow through on things that are important to you and do the 508 and blah, blah, blah. But in order to be happy, I think you have to be able to tone that down and balance it against other things in your life. Yeah.

You know what I mean? And that's the hard part for me. Well, hopefully you can start making enough money to where you can make that happen. Yeah. Well, I mean, and it's not really, it's not a function of money really you know what i mean it's a function of i mean you know having finances helps but i don't really think it's about that i think it's about prioritizing and just making a decision like you know when you're you sort of have that fantasy like i'm gonna go train all day and being able to say actually you know what like serena would be very appreciative if i didn't do that. And I, we went on a road trip this afternoon somewhere or something like that. You know what I mean? Like, or what else in my life is not

being attended to with the same amount of intensity as, you know, where I feel like inclined to put it, you know, where could it be be better served and that doesn't have anything to do with money yeah but money money facilitates some of that stuff you know it's like it does it does but every time it does for sure but i think that every time i i sort of make that decision that money will solve a problem and then money comes in money never ends up being the solution of the problem you know what i mean? No, you're absolutely right. Because it'll create a new problem or something else. And that's just been my experience. So what did we learn here today, that money is the root of all evil?

I don't know. This was pretty rambling today. Yeah. Lay some truth down and we'll wrap it up. Go out, buy the book, that's the truth. Well, first you got to click on the Amazon banner at richroll.com. Yeah, absolutely. Always go to richroll.com. Absolutely. Always go to richroll.com.

And actually, you know what? I want to thank everyone out there for using it because that's been great. People have been so supportive of the show by using the banner ad. And it's such a great way to support the show. It doesn't cost anybody anything. You know what I mean? And it really pays the bills for this podcast. It's fantastic. It's a win-win for everybody and what's fun i don't know if you do this because you're such a luddite with your tech but if you go to the amazon affiliate page you can

actually scroll through like what people have bought by using your banner ad oh yeah and it does that yeah yeah so i want to start like uh picking somebody every week week to like give them a shout out, like somebody who decides they're going to buy like a flat screen TV or some big purchase, you know, and I don't know, give them some free swag or something. That's a great idea. Do you have t-shirts and stuff yet? We're just getting the t-shirts going. I Instagrammed the design for the first.

I mean, there's not going to be one be all end all t-shirt we're going to do a whole ton of different ones but the first one's going to be available in a couple weeks and I took a picture and threw it up on Instagram last week's should be available in like two weeks and I already held a contest online for a couple people to win them. Oh, cool. Yeah, getting that going. Mine just came. As a matter of fact, I grabbed mine in the car. You have an NSNG? Yeah.

Yeah. Does it have a hashtag on it? Yeah. That's what mine's hashtag plant power. So you have a hashtag. Yeah, you got to use the hashtag. Yeah, the hashtag is in a circle. I'll show it to you.

I need to walk out of here in a second. I didn't even open the box yet. Oh, you didn't. All right. So I haven't seen it. We're going to see them together. Cool. Excellent, man.

What size do you wear? I'll get you one next time. And I'll get you one as well i don't know medium large medium whatever all right next order i'll get you one and uh these are all spoken for but these are the first ones and they're really cool exciting i think they're cool so do you have a picture of them up on your site yeah you can you order them already oh yeah people people have these are people have them my. People have them. My fans have them before me. Oh, okay.

And these are my first ones. That's the way it should be. Yeah. It's like, go get them. And they've been buying them for a couple of weeks. You just click on the little T-shirt thing. Yeah, I like your new site, by the way. It's about time.

Your other site was horrible. Yeah, it was. Just to get me started. I know. You know what I did? WordPress, put something up, do a podcast. Yeah, your new site's all pro, man. I like it.

It's all dialed in now. Yeah, I got something going there now. Yeah, cool. I've grown up. I'm proud of you, man. Thanks. I'm proud of you. Yeah, it's been a fun little journey.

Yeah. All right, well, we patted each other on the back a little bit here. Yeah, let's get out of here. I got to get on the phone with you. Do you know John Smith? Do you ever get him on the show? No, who's that? He's a triathlon guy in New Orleans, of all places, and he has a podcast.

As soon as I leave here, I get in the car and get on the phone with him and do another podcast. Oh, is he, what's his podcast called? He was Garden Tribe for a while. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think I did an interview with him. Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh, for sure. He's a good guy.

So I leave here, get in the car, pick up the phone, and start talking to John. Good, man. I like it. Yeah. All right, cool. So all right, we'll get you out of here. So VinnieTortorich.com is where you go to find out more about Vinnie, at Vinnie Tortorich on Twitter.

You got a Facebook page too, right? Oh, yeah, I got it. You got all that page too, right? Oh yeah, I got it. You got all that stuff. Check out his new website, get a t-shirt. And if you're going to buy the book, which you are, Fitness Confidential in Kindle and paperback, click on the Amazon banner ad on richworld.com.

Pick it up and pick up whatever else you're going to get on Amazon. And it'll be a good day for all of us. Yeah. All right, man. Thanks for dropping by all of us. Yeah. All right, man. Thanks for dropping by. Thanks for having me.

All right, buddy. Peace. Plants. Thank you. you you you