The Rich Roll Podcast - Jesse Itzler On Building Your Life Resume & Why Happiness Is An Action

Episode Date: May 28, 2018

It's easy to take risks when your back is against the wall. But it's the rare individual that will continue to push the envelope, face fear and embrace the unknown when that person could choose to live without self-imposed obstacles. Jesse Itzler is one such human. After a barnburner appearance on the podcast back in 2015 (check RRP #197 if you missed it), the man who lives so far “out of the box” that there is no box returns for another stellar exchange that does not disappoint. For those new to the show, this is a guy who fast-talked his way right out of college into a recording contract, ultimately taking his music all the way to MTV, the Billboard 100 and even an Emmy. Jesse then takes a wild entrepreneurial left-turn, creating and ultimately selling big companies like Marquis Jet, the world’s largest prepaid private jet card company, and Zico Coconut Water, before wooing Spanx founder (and Shark Tank guest host) Sarah Blakely all the way to the altar. Despite his tremendous success as a serial entrepreneur, Jesse started to feel his life stagnate. Desperate to avoid the malaise of risk adversity visited upon many a prosperous peer, he embarks on a hare-brained scheme to invite adventure back into his life by convincing Navy SEAL David Goggins — the most popular episode in the history of this show — to move in with him. David relents on one condition: that Jesse comply with David's every demand, no matter how severe. The insanity that ensues is hilariously chronicled in Living With A SEAL, Jesse's well deserved New York Times bestseller. He eats only fruit before noon. He runs 100 mile races. He raises millions for charity. And when he isn't playing super dad to his four kids (check his Instagram stories for daily dad episodes), he's an in demand motivational speaker (check out his TEDx Talk) who just happens to own the Atlanta Hawks NBA franchise with a few friends. No biggie. So the question is: how does this guy have such an extraordinary life? Jesse boils it down to one singular mission statement: Live life full blast. Never be afraid to fail. And never, ever allow yourself to stagnate. Enjoy! Rich

Two words that changed my life. And those words are remember tomorrow. When you have a split second decision that you have to make, remember how that decision is going to make you feel tomorrow. You want to drop out of the marathon at mile 18? Fine. How are you going to feel tomorrow when someone says, how'd you do? You want to take off your shirt and drink tequila at the holiday party

and dance on the table and swing around and be the life of the party. That's amazing at the party until tomorrow. You know, those two words, if you really think about it, when you have a key decision or you're at a critical juncture in something big, how are you going to feel when you make this decision tomorrow? Those words have really impacted me. That's Jesse Itzler. And this, my friends, is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody, what's going on? How are you? What is happening?

Rich Roll here, your host of this podcast, the show where I go deep with some of the most intriguing, the most interesting, the most compelling thought leaders, change makers, intellects, and personalities to probe a panoply of themes, health, wellness, medicine, nutrition, longevity, entrepreneurship, philanthropy, entertainment, technology, psychology, environmentalism, athleticism, and in the case of today's guest, fitness, adventure, and essentially, how to live your best life. My guest today is none other than Jesse Itzler, and let me tell you, this guy is a world-class character. Many of you may know Jesse as the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Living with a Seal, which is this extraordinary

chronicle of what happened when Jesse moved Navy SEAL David Goggins into his home. You guys know David from my podcast with him about a year and a half ago. That was episode 266. And essentially makes Jesse agree to do everything David asks of him for a period of 30 days. And this is an experience that Jesse and I discussed at length in our first podcast together, episode 197 back in 2015. Check that out if you missed it. It's a good one. This is a guy who enjoys living life out of the box. In fact, he's a guy who's so out of the box that there really is no box. This is a guy who fast-talked his way right out of college into a recording contract, ultimately taking his music all the way to MTV, the Billboard 100, and even winning an Emmy. He then takes this crazy, wild, entrepreneurial left turn, creating and selling huge companies,

companies like Marquee Jet, the world's largest prepaid private jet card company, as well as Zyko Coconut Water, before basically wooing Spanx founder Sarah Blakely all the way to the altar with whom to this day he has four kids. Jesse is a guy who only eats fruit before noon. He runs a hundred mile races. He raises millions of dollars for charity. He's an in-demand motivational speaker who also just so happens to own the Atlanta Hawks NBA franchise with a few friends. so happens to own the Atlanta Hawks NBA franchise with a few friends. So the obvious question is, how does this guy have such a huge, amazing life? And I think Jesse would say that it's in large part due to his central mission statement, which is basically live life full blast. Never be afraid to fail and never ever allow yourself to stagnate.

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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. who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it.

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Jesse Itzler, living full blast, living boundless, embracing adventure. Well, consistent with this theme, this life mission, and motivated by his enthusiasm for sharing adventure. Jesse recently launched this really cool, crazy series of endurance challenge events inspired, sort of inspired, I think it's inspired by the Seven Summits series. It's called Made of Challenges, which are these immersive, super engaged end-to-end weekend experiences that are kind of one part wellness retreat, complete with like glamping tents and one part totally unique athletic challenge. He rents a mountain.

We get into all the details today. So just stay tuned for the conversation to learn more about that. In addition, Jesse has a brand new book that releases this week. It's entitled Living with the Monks. It's essentially a sequel to Living with a Seal on the spiritual front. It's like this unconventional spiritual adventure about him living with Russian Orthodox monks in a monastery in upstate New York. That's basically one part memoir and one part primer or roadmap for living a less stressful and vibrant life. So today we get into all of it. That's it. That's all I want to say.

So let's, uh, let's just blast into it. This is me and the great Jesse Itzler. We can talk about whatever you want, man. I'm excited to have you back, dude. It's good to see you. You too, man. Thanks for, uh, thanks for coming out, man. I appreciate it. No, I'm so excited to have you back, dude. It's good to see you. You too, man. Thanks for coming out, man. I appreciate it. No, you've done a lot for me, man. I really just, not just stuff that you've done for me personally. I mean, you've always been, you've been a good friend to me and supportive, but just through your guests as a fan. I mean, I've learned so much and it's just great to see how people gravitate towards

the, just the the, you know, just the genuine, you're just genuine, man. And so there's a lot of snake oil out there. There's definitely a lot of snake oil out there, but I, you know, I don't know. I mean, that's the thing that I'm trying to be most conscious of all the time. Like, is this real?

Like, am I being real or am I, you know, am I, is there artifice here that I need to strip away from? Like, you know, the word authenticity now has become so co-opted that I don't even know what that means anymore, but it is true. Like I'm trying to just, you know, I'm just trying to, you know, present these people and ask them the questions

that I wanna know the answers to. And then I think the audience wants to know the answers to and just fucking keep it real, man. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So it's good to have you. And there's been, I mean, I was thinking like when I first met you, I went to your house in Atlanta. We didn't know each other really. And I didn't know what to expect. We had a great conversation, but you've done a lot since then. I feel like

at that moment in time, it was right on the, right at the beginning of when Living With a Seal was coming out. Yeah. And you were kind of like, okay, entrepreneur who like wrote this book. And now, I mean, how long ago was that? Three years ago or something like that? Now you've got this other book coming out that I wanna talk about,

but you've kind of stepped into this world of like motivational guru guy, you know, creating all these events. Like you're really out like cultivating community around these ideas in a way that you weren't doing at that point in time, right? Like that's kind of an evolution for you. It has been a process and like many things in my life,

it wasn't planned. I didn't plan it. I didn't, you know, even the book with David, I didn't invite David to come live with me and say, okay, we're going to write a book. And I think it would have been a totally different outcome if that was the case. He lived with me and it was an amazing journey. And I started sharing the story and people were gravitating towards like, what makes a guy like that tick? And how do I get the secret sauce and drive and consistency and discipline of someone like that? And ultimately it led to, well, let me share that.

And the same thing with this whole kind of, I don't know if I would call it, I definitely would call it guru, but motivation or whatever, it's just honesty. It's like, this is how I live my life. And if people are into it, let me give you a look inside under the hood of how I live my life. I think people are into it, let me give you a look inside under the hood of, you know, how I live my life. I think I live it differently than others, but it's just how I want to live it.

You know? Did you make a conscious decision? Like, okay, I'm going to start sharing this stuff. Or was it because people were responding to you in a different way? Or like, how did that evolve? It started like anything else, super small. Like my wife always says, start small, think big and scale fast in business. And this was the same kind of thing. Friends would come to my house and they would be like, this was an amazing day.

Like, I can't believe it. And I'm like, I do this every day. You know, this is what I do. Like, you know, we get up, we have a good healthy meal. We work out, we, you know, we talk about stuff, we live as big and as fun and as happy as we possibly can. And of course there's hiccups and I'm like, wow, this, you know, like you want more of this, come over again.

And then like more people would come. But when it's your normal, you're just like, well, this is, isn't everybody doing this, right? And you don't realize until you invite those other people over the contrast between how you're living versus other people. Like I get a little bit of that, just, you know, we live a pretty unique

kind of non-traditional, you know, life here. Here, you got a little idea of that. But when you're just- You sleep in a tent. It's just my normal thing. But I'm like, yeah, but everybody should do that. I don't know, you know? People would think that's a little bit different.

Right. I think when I first spoke to you, it had just been made public that David Goggins was the guy in the book, because in Living with a Seal, you never name him, right? And there was some question as to whether you were ever going to be able to, like, say who it was specifically. able to like say who it was specifically. And it's been interesting over the last couple of years, and maybe just even in the last year alone, how David has made this kind of conscious effort to step out into the public eye and share his story in a real way. I mean, I was able to get him on the podcast and now I've seen he's done a bunch of shows and he's working on a book and all that kind of stuff. So that's been kind of cool to see too, because as you know, and as I knew going way back, I'm like, this guy needs to like share what he's got, you know?

Like people don't realize what he's sitting on top of. So it's, and then when he goes and he does these shows, people are just like, what? You know, they can't even wrap their head around it. Yeah, well, you know, I think people are so, myself included, we get caught in our own routine. And what I found, at least in my own life, is time goes really fast when you're in a routine and you're doing the same thing over and over.

And before you know it, you wake up and you're 70 or 80 and you're like, oh man, I can't climb that mountain that I wanted to climb anymore. And when you see people that are doing something differently and you gravitate towards that and you change, time slows down. You feel super alive. And his story is so compelling. I mean, it's so interesting, A, how he thinks and how he approaches life. But I think anyone that has a different outlook

that gives you a little bit of nugget or wisdom that helps you improve can really have changed the effect on how you live. We were just talking about it a minute ago before we started the podcast of how I'm turning 50. And the thing that's fundamentally shifted for me as I turned 50 is my relationship with time. And I think that people,

we think of relationships in terms of my relationship with my family, my kids, my wife, my parents, but we don't think of relationships in terms of money and time. And my relationship with time was out of whack. And as I turned 50, I realized like, man, the average American lives to be 78. Now I hope I'm not average, but that's a fact.

And if I am the average, I got 28 summers left. And my summers between 70 and 80 are gonna be, my relevant year shrink dramatically as a percentage every year I get older. So I'm not gonna be able to do what I love to do. What makes me tick, hopefully I will, but likely, I didn't see a lot of people doing the 100 mile run I did that were 75 years old.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got 28, if you have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got 28. If you have 28 summers, it's like, well, who do you want to spend that time with? And what do you want to do? And it's like something happened as I'm turning 50 that I'm so damn aware of it. That literally, literally it's in my DNA.

It's like every night I go to sleep, I'm like, did I maximize the day? You know, and like, Jesse, man, you got, you know, if you have 28 years left, what in the world do you want to accomplish before that time is up? You know? So I've had this fundamental shift and it's fucking with me. But what I think is interesting about you is, I mean, first of all, I would agree, like for me, you know, 40 was what it was, but like 50 is a different deal, you know? And it really hit me at 51.

Like we were talking before the podcast, like my hair started going gray, like immediately. And it's like, oh, my back's a little tight. You know, it's like, it's the first instance of experiencing, you know, any kind of aging. Cause I always just feel like I'm 24 or whatever. And for the most part, I still feel that way. But I found it to be significant.

But I think what's unique about you is, look, you live your life in a pretty unique set of circumstances. Like you can fucking do whatever you want, right? And most people who are, you know, in your scenario are just chilling, you know? Like they're going on nice vacations and they're just relaxing

and they're not continuing to push themselves. So like, what is it inside of you that's always like trying, you know, that like impulse to like continually grow and put yourself in uncomfortable situations and expand your horizons? Well, I think I'm driven for me.

I'm a big believer in building your life resume versus your personal resume. Having a business resume is important, but I think a life resume is a real good look of your own, of your real body of work. It's a real indication of who you are and what you're becoming. of your real body of work. It's a real indication of who you are and what you're becoming. And I am not, nobody cares that the Dallas Mavericks or won the championship five years ago,

or that Alabama won the football. It's like, what's next? And that's how I live my life. It's like, check the box. I don't want to sit and dwell on the fact that, okay, Jesse, you ran this marathon, or you completed, you sold this or whatever, because tomorrow no one cares about

that. And so it's like, check the box and move on. And that's, that's, it's like, how can I build the biggest life resume that I can build? And those things and those challenges and pushing myself again, for me is the only way to really know what I'm made of. It's where all the growth is. All the growth is there. And it truly, in my heart of hearts, makes me feel the most alive. It's what I like to do. If I didn't like it, I wouldn't do it. I would just be like, all right,

I'm gonna go to a fancy hotel and sit in the lobby and drink martinis. But it requires, I think what it does is it forces you to confront yourself in a very humbling way. Like it requires some humility, right? Absolutely. Like you got to check your ego at the door and you're in a situation where you could just be feeding your ego all day long, right? So it's about like always remembering like there's more to do, there's more to learn. like there's always a horizon that's a

little bit outside of your reach. And if you have the willingness to approach that, that's where some magic can happen for yourself. And that's where you feel alive. And that's where that, you do experience that thing where time slows down. You do. And I think, you know, I've had plenty of regrets in my life. If I could go back, they would say, look, what would you tell your 21 year old self? And what would you do differently? And there's a lot of stuff. It's easy to look back and play Monday morning quarterback and say, this is what I would do. And I have a lot of regrets, but from those lessons, it's like, I don't want to have those regrets. I want to do as much as I can to prevent that forward.

So, you know, you only get what, we all had the same 24 hours in a day. Yeah. You're everybody listening, you, myself, it's just how do you spend it? And I'm super, obviously you have to work and you have to bring in income, but you get one life, you know, like you can't, there's no redo.

And I don't want to live it like streamlined, like just a steady line going across. I want to kind of always, who doesn't want to live it with an uptick, always trying to kind of reach. So that's why I love the challenges and you're wired the same way. I mean. Yeah. I think a lot of people though, think like they don't, they don't, they're, they consciously know, they don't get a redo, but so many people, and I'm guilty of this, this is the way I used to live. Like you just sort of resign yourself to how you're living.

And, and there's some part of you that does think like, well, next time I'll do it differently. This idea that there is gonna be a next time. It's, you know, the, the reality of like the 28 summers is like, you know, that just puts it into perspective in a very real way. Yeah. And when you start to realize your own, like you get in tune with your own mortality, like you start to realize that like in a hundred years, nobody that you see on the street is going to be here anymore. You know, like, first of all, it's a great motivator to get over fear because who cares, but we're is going to be here anymore. You know, like, first of all, it's a great motivator to get over fear.

Because who cares, but we're all going to be dead in like 80 years. So like, who cares what this guy thinks about me, you know? But when you start to realize that let's just take the 28 summers, and I hope I'm wrong. I hope I live, we all live longer, but let's just say that that is the case.

You know, when you look at it that way and say like, I have, my parents are both alive. Are your parents alive? How old are your parents? 76, 74. And where do they live? Washington, DC. How often do you see them? Like twice a year.

Okay. So most people be like, okay, let's say your parents live till 80. So they have five more years. Okay. let's just say roughly. You would say I have five more years of my parents, but I would say, no, you have 10 more times with your parents if you see them twice a year. You see them twice a year times five, you have 10 more times to see them.

When you start thinking of things like that, your first reaction is, I wanna go see my parents. At least that's mine. My parents are 88. They live in Florida. I live in Atlanta. And I'm like, I see him two times a year. I'm like, man, if they live to be 91,

I'm going to see him six more times. That's unacceptable to me. So you change the way you approach it. And I'm like, I'm going to go see my parents every other month. You know, I'm going to make it a priority. And we don't think like that. We think ahead. You know, it's like, nothing it a priority. And we don't think like that. We think ahead.

You know, it's like, nothing's going to happen. It's always going to be great. You know, in two years, we're going on a vacation. We're going here. I'm going to put it off. I'm going to do it next year. There's, when you start to think backwards, it creates insane urgency.

At least it has for me, you know? And that's what led me to the monastery. I was like, I'm not waiting five years to do anything. Right, right, right. I think there's a watch that you can get that counts down from that. I have that watch. Oh, you do? I do. I thought about that the other day and I was like, yeah, that would just freak me out though, to be always looking at it that way. That could make you neurotic too, I think. It could, and it's not like I'm obsessed

with the whole notion of time and that. And you could see that, you know, you could think like that could be depressing, but for me it's motivating and it's exciting. But we don't think about death in a healthy way in our culture. We just, we pretend it's not gonna happen. On some level, we all kind of think somehow we're

going to avoid it. And when it does happen, it makes us very uncomfortable. We don't know how to communicate around it. And I feel like if we could bring awareness about our own mortality into our daily existence, which is basically what you're saying right now, that it will allow us to appreciate, you know, our days in a way that we're challenged by right now. I think so, very much so. I think that's part one. And I think part two is as we age, not like we're 90, Rich, you know,

you're 50, we're having a conversation like we're 89 years old each. We have plenty of great years left ahead of us. But, you know, one of my goals is to age with vibrancy and not be medicated and restricted as I get into my 70s and 80s. I think the average American, I think there's 4 billion prescriptions prescribed every year. It's insane. It's like 13 for every man, woman, and child in this country or something, something like that.

It's some outrageous number. I think that actually might be the stat. And I'm not a statistician, but I would just say by looking at my parents and their inner circle, a lot of that are to the elderly, blood thinners and this thing and heart and pain and this. And it's like, why?

Why? Just to sit, you know, like my goal is to, or one of my goals is to just to live now in a way that will allow me to be vibrant in the future. And the challenges that you present to yourself, like always pushing yourself and putting yourself in these uncomfortable situations, that creates that plasticity that keeps you young, I think. It keeps you engaged. It keeps you, you know, vibrant, like you said. And I think that's, you know, that's really the

way if you want like the recipe for youth, you know, to be connected to other people, to cultivate community, to put yourself in these uncomfortable situations to the extent that you can continue to do that. Because it is about the quality of the time that you're spending. It's not just getting old, like how long are you gonna live? Like what are those last eight years

gonna look like for you? Yeah, I mean, exactly. I mean, that's 33% of my life, you know, left. No, it's a big, I'm serious. It's a big, you know, you have to think like, I think it's important to think like that as opposed to being in a bubble and living just, you know, you plan everything else.

We plan so far ahead. You probably talked to your wife. What are we going to do in Christmas vacation? You know, what are we going to do? Like everything is forward, but reverse engineer. It's no different than like, it's like when I was, when I was starting out in business and we had Mark, any of the ventures that I've been in, I've always had the, the end of the movie in my head, the script had to be filled in and the script might have rewrites

along the way, but the end of the movie was always crystal clear. It's like, okay, this is good. You know, there was no like B plan. This is what, this is where we have to get to. And this is now let's figure out, let's figure this shit out. And who do we have to hire to get there? And what do we have to do?

It's the same thing with like, kind of like life, right? I mean, like, you know, you want to be 80, but what does 80 look like for a rich role? Yeah, I think I need to do a better job of that. I mean, you said to me before the podcast, like, you know, you want to be 80, but what does 80 look like for a rich role? Yeah, I think I need to do a better job of that. I mean, you said to me before the podcast, like, you know, what does your life look like in five years? And I was like, I'm not sure, you know? I was like, what do you mean?

I know, yeah, yeah. You're like, oh, I always have a crystal clear view of, you know, how this is going to work out at the end, what the end game looks like. You know, I think I could, I think I have a lot of improvement in that regard because I don't tend to think in those terms. For starters, tell yourself in five years, you're gonna be 35 years old.

Just your reverse age in your head. That's good. Yeah, because I mean, I think part of it is, like you mentioned, part of the Fountain of Youth is doing these challenges and working out and being active. But how much of your life is because you forecasted five, 10 years ahead of time? Like, I feel like a lot, like you just said

at the beginning, like, oh, this is all happening organically. Like now you're being this motivational guy. Like this wasn't a whiteboarded, you know, agenda for you. This is like a natural organic outgrowth of the things that you're just, you're magnetized by that you're interested in. Yeah. So, I mean, I didn't, I didn't plan any of this. I didn't plan the living with the, you know, the seal book and where, where writing books has taken me or speaking or any of that stuff. But now that I'm here and I have a lane,

I have a vision and I'm always kind of, now I'm projecting out three to five years. Like, you know, I'm enjoying it, first of all. If it doesn't resonate, I'm out of here. And if I don't enjoy it, I'm out of here. You know, which goes to like, when I look at things like that, I look at it like in a very, very simple way.

Risk, aggravation versus reward. If it's low aggra, and we talked about this before the podcast, I was asking you about your system and everything. It's like low aggravation, high reward is the target for anything. People, work, if it's high aggravation, high reward is the target for anything. People, work, if it's high aggravation, high reward, when you're young, that's okay.

But as you get older, you don't want high aggravation in your life. We talked about this. I could see it in your face. You slept in a tent. You're a low aggravation guy. Even I choose that. That's not an aggravating thing for me at all.

But it's a rejuvenating thing. It's telltale. Oh, come on. You know, so if it becomes high aggravation, then it would be something that I would exit. But it wasn't planned. But now that I have this lane, I am projecting out three to five years,

you know, like what could it be and how big could it be? And what is the vision? Well, I have this little, an online, and I don't want, this isn't pitchy. I'm just, you asked. I have an online course. So that's something I think could scale. And that's something I'm putting a lot of energy into.

I enjoy speaking. It's just staying in the lanes that I like and making them bigger. Right, so you're going around, you're doing tons of talks, right? Like you're traveling a lot, doing a lot of public speaking. And like you do, but you,

it's not just like you show up and you give a speech, like you're going on runs with people and you're taking them out into the, out into nature and having these experiences. And now you're creating these adventure endurance challenge slash, you know, wellness retreat, like weekend. So let's talk about that. I mean, I just, in the podcast that went up last night, I did a, I did a read for your, you know, the new thing that you're doing, the Maiden Denali thing, which is super cool. Yeah, it was, it's, you know, I've gained so much from doing challenging things. And I feel like the same courage, the same resilience and persistence to accomplish a really tough endurance event translates into business, parenting, all the areas of your life.

It's almost like that's the workout for all these other buckets, you know? Because it translates. That grit, it doesn't disappear because the race is over. You can apply it to patients with your kids when they're having a tantrum. I mean, they asked Richard Branson what the biggest key to his success was.

And he said, exercise. And I don't think he meant like physically exercising. I think he meant the consistency, the discipline, going out on days when it was raining, when he didn't want to do it. You know, the things that it takes during training and this kind of stuff, because it translates into all,

into your blood, into your DNA. So I did, I created this series of events. The first one was called 29029, which we rented the entire mountain of Stratton in Vermont, which is crazy and brought in tents, which you would love because you'd be like the four seasons for you. You'd sleep in these tents. You'd feel like you're like-

Super nice. You might not even do the race You'd sleep in these tents. You'd feel like you're like- That's super nice. You might not even do the race. Come sleep in these tents. And we bring in bands and food trucks. But the challenge was, you know, get up to the top of the mountain at Stratton, take the gondola down, repeat, until you climb the vertical equivalent of Everest, 29,000 plus feet.

And so now we've created a summit series of all the seven summits with similar kind of themes. The next one being in Utah, which is the equivalent of Denali. Right, so you're gonna go up this mountain in Utah. I think you gotta do it nine times, right? Yeah, it's like 2.3 miles. Uh-huh, for 20,322 feet.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it, yeah. Yeah, it's cool. Like I know that my friend Colin O'Brady did the one in Stratton, right? Yeah. He's an insane athlete. Did he win it or? I mean, first of all, I met him on the mountain.

Uh-huh. But you never met him before? No, and didn't know much about him. And I met him at around 11 o'clock at night. It's pitch dark, it's windy. It's cold. I'm on the top, almost at the top of the mountain. And I see a light, a headlight behind me, maybe like a hundred yards,

but coming like a mountain goat. Approaching me like a leopard, you know? And I turn around, I'm like, is that a human? You know, like, who is that? And he came over and started talking and introduced himself and slowed down tremendously and told me his story, which is fascinating, amazing backstory.

And then went on his merry way until the light disappeared. I think by the time I got finally to the top of the summit, he had already circled down on the gondola, came back and caught me again and just continued the conversation. Yeah, he's super impressive. Yeah, well, you're doing this series, you're gonna do an event for each one of the seven summits.

And this is the guy who has a world record for the fastest to do all of those, right, in a year. Yes, yes. So he's the perfect dude. And I was picking his brain like the whole time. I'm like, you know, what's the best way for me? You know, it's like part of these things are social. You meet amazing people.

Like he and I became really close after the event. And I learned so much from him and others. Because what I love about this, we've almost created a new category, endurance hiking, is despite the fact that it's low impact, which for me, I want right now, I'm craving stuff that's not going to pound my limbs. I've done all that. And it's totally doable. My wife did 12 of the 17 summits.

Wow. But it's really social because when the gondola is going down, it's going over the course. You see everybody the whole time and you get a chance to really meet some interesting people. And he was one of them. And you also have like this, it's not just the event. Like you do this immersive weekend and you bring bands and speakers in.

Like for the thing, for the one in Utah, I mean, it sounds almost like a wellness retreat. Yeah, so the day before, we married a wellness retreat with an endurance challenge. And I just feel like a lot of these events out there, races included, they're all kind of similar. Like here's a 10K, but okay. You go and you do the thing and then you go home. You go home. And I just wanted to put a twist on it.

So why not have speakers around people that run a 10K would want? Like let's have someone talk about recovery. Let's have someone talk about nutrition. Let's have a mindset expert, you know, come in and talk about how to keep going when you want to stop. So that's the theme.

Yeah, that's cool. So how many people can you take for these events? Like how many can you manage? We keep it kind of tight. We keep it limited to about 200 because yeah, small, but not small because it just, that's kind of the sweet spot. If it becomes too big, it becomes not as special and not as intimate in my opinion. You know, if we scale it down the road, but right now that's, that's, that seems to be working well. Yeah, I like the community aspect of it. You know, like you go and it's a bit,

you do all the training and you show up. And then sometimes, you know, whether it's an Ironman or a marathon, like you're with all these people, but there's such an amazing opportunity to connect more deeply with everybody that I think gets missed. There's no bond like suffering through a race on any level.

Ultras do, because you're there for so long and they tend to be smaller that you get to really know those people a little bit better. Yeah, I think in ultras, at least the one that couple that I ran, it's so individualized. Like people aren't like chatting it up and like you're in your own world. And this is way more social.

From the event that we did in Vermont, nine of the participants that didn't know each other have come together and are now all running Leadville this summer, training together, having monthly dinners together. So a lot, and that's my intent. My intent is to kind of bring people together. Did this grow out of, you used to,

maybe you still do this thing where you do this hill run thing, like out in the Hamptons or something like that. Was that the original like kernel of inspiration for these? Yes. I'm just so bored with traditional races. You know, it's like, I'm just so bored with obstacle runs and not knocking them.

I'm just bored of marathons. That's why I did the Otillo last year. It was just so different. It's just different. So I have an event at my house called Hell on the Hill. It's for charity. And we run up and down this super steep inclined hill, which is my backyard, 100 times.

It takes about three hours. And it's brutal. It's so brutal. But that was the genesis of this. And it's kind of like, okay, well, what are the themes? What if we go to a real mountain? Yeah, like the hill's not big enough. We've outgrown the hill.

Let's go rent the mountain. Cool, man. Well, let's talk a little bit about the new book. I mean, it comes out, and it doesn't come out for another month or so, right? A month and a half or something. But I was aware that you went to this monastery. So you got this book coming out, like Living with the Monks, Living with Monks?

Is that what it's called? Yeah, Living with the Monks. So walk me through this. Like this is the sequel to Living with a Seal. Yeah, I think, you know, I did the physical part with Goggins and Living with a Seal, and now I wanted to just get into this spiritual side a little bit, which is completely new to me.

I had a hard time seeing you sit down for very long. I know, insanely ADD. And so that was very difficult for me as was being away from my family. But yeah, I went to, I lived on a monastery for 15 days with eight monks, four of which have been there for 50 years, 50 years. And there was no, you know, no cell phone, no internet, no wife, none of that stuff.

Was it a silent retreat? It was, there were periods of silence, but it wasn't, it wasn't all silent and they weren't Buddhist. They were Russian Orthodox, which I didn't even- It's kind of like a weird, how did you select this monastery? I didn't even- It's kind of like a weird, how did you select this monastery? So I didn't select it. I always wanted to learn more about this whole kind of like,

you know, you think of monks, you think of like the spiritual experts in a way, at least I did, you know, my vision in my head. And my publisher of Living With a Seal had a relationship with a monastery just South of Canada on 500 acres in the middle of nowhere. And she suggested that this would be a good place to go, that they would allow me to go and spend some time there. So I was like, cool. Can I go in a week? And I did. And I went up there really not knowing what to expect.

And as it turns out, this particular monastery is world famous for breeding and training German shepherds. That's just super weird. So I walked in- But you show up like, you shaved your head, right? Yes. You posted it on Instagram. So are you thinking you're gonna go

into this Buddhist sanctuary? Yes, I thought I was going to, I thought I was going to go to, and I don't know what, I wanted to go with no, I did really no research because I wanted to go completely just open-minded. I don't want to have any, anyone else's take on what to expect. I wanted my own, I just wanted to experience versus have any kind of notions. So I thought there would be like 60 people there. I thought monastery equal community. I thought that everyone would just be walking around silent and all day we would sit in a circle and think.

And there was some of that. There's a lot of sitting around and thinking, but there are only eight monks. And most of the day, surprisingly, was centered around labor. And I was, most of my day was working, like mopping, cleaning, cleaning the toilets. It's like a weird German shepherd kibbutz.

It was like I was the rookie on the football team. Were you learning meditation though? Were there other people doing what you were doing there or were you just showed up and it's you and the monks? It was me, eight monks, 11 German shepherds. And there was a cook that came in a couple of days a week. And a wheelbarrow. And one intern.

Yeah. They had an intern. And that was it. And when I got there the first day, they gave me a quick tour where brother Christopher, who was like kind of my go-to monk. And it's kind of assigned to me as like my senior guy. And he gave me a quick tour and he took me into my room,

which was the size of, you know, not that much bigger than width-wise of your desk. And there was a light and a small little table. And he put me, went in my room and he said, you know, tomorrow at 7, 15 AM, we will start with meditation, prayer, and reflection. When you hear the bells ring, head over to the sanctuary. I said, okay, it's six o'clock PM right now. What do I do for the next 13 hours? You know, like there's nothing to do. And he looked at me like dead in my eye

and he's like, you think? And I was like, okay. So he left the room. No books. Nothing, zero, zero. Do you have to give him your phone or do you leave that at home? It was like the Russians silenced any kind of phone.

There was, my phone was, it didn't matter that I had a phone. There was no, it was like grayed out. So I sat in my room and I'm like, all right, I'm gonna try to meditate. You know, I'd taken a transcendental meditation kind of crash course. They gave me a mantra.

I'm like, told me to set my timer for 20 minutes. So I did, I got out my timer and I set it for 20 minutes and I closed my eyes and I started to try to focus on my word and immediately I'm getting bombarded with like, what are my kids doing? The Hawks aren't doing great. All these thoughts are going through my head and I'm like, whoa, the thing hasn't beeped.

I've been doing this for a while. So I thought maybe, well, let me make sure I set my timer. I'm like, no, I must be just underestimating the time, you know? So I went back into my mantra and started thinking. And again, very hard for me to block stuff out. But after a lot of time passed, I'm like, nothing, I haven't beeped.

So I'm like, I have to set my timer and I'll just start over. So I took out my timer and I opened my eyes and it said three minutes and 27 seconds. So I immediately calculated how many minutes I have left, 15 days times 24 hours times 60, you know, or 57 minutes. And I was like, oh shit, like, I'm not, this is, I mean, this is, I mean, I'm not in Kansas, like this is real. I'm stuck in this room with no contact to my family.

I don't know what my kids are doing. I don't know if my wife is mad at me for being here or God forbid something happens. I mean, all these fears and thoughts and the clock slowed down. It literally like stopped. And then it was eight o'clock and I'm like, it's only eight o'clock day one. Like, and it just really flipped me out and took me to, I wouldn't say a dark place, but like somewhere I'd never been before. Cause I'm, I walk around everywhere. We both have our phones right here.

Yeah. I'm never without my phone or, you know, I can watch something unfold in China real time on my phone if I want to. And now I'm looking at trees, I'm in isolation and I have 15 days ahead of me. So it was interesting. How long did it take you to kind of acclimate

to that rhythm? You know- Or did you never- No, it took until about 10 days, literally, where I finally, you know what happened? I started having all this self-doubt in my head and I started giving myself outs. Like saying, okay, after seven days, I can leave

because no one's gonna care if I went for seven days or 15 days. I'll say I went for a week. Like that sounds good, good enough. So on day four, I'm like, I'm out of here in three days. And I planted these seeds of giving myself an out. And then I got to day seven and I'm like, let me stay one more day.

So I can say I got, I was over a week, you know? And then at day 10, I'm like, no, Jesse, you committed to 15 days. You're here for 15 days, start experiencing and enjoying this and embracing it for what it is instead of like fighting it. And once I did that and I was, I really settled in, that's when all the lessons started to kind of open up for me. And that's when I started to really kind of, you know, because we always give ourselves some kind of, oh, maybe it's going to rain tomorrow. I don't have to run. Yeah. Well, it's kind of like an ultra, like it's so overwhelming in its breadth and length that the only way to wrap your head around it is to break it up into the like,

okay, it's six. I have to get to eight o'clock or I'll just make it a week and I'll deal with whatever I have to deal with after that. You know, it's the only way for your brain to like process what's happening. And similar to an ultra, like, you know, you can read, before I ran my 100 miler, I did so much research around, you know, at the time, not that many people had ran 100 miles, maybe like 400 Americans, I think,

is all that I could identify back then. I read every blog and everything I could about goal setting and all this stuff. But at mile 93, when I had six toenails in my shoe floating around, all the stuff that I had read and all the preparation, it goes out the window and it's just you. And that's how I felt in that moment.

Like nothing I read about, oh, you know, people telling me it's only gonna be two weeks. Yeah, tell me that at one o'clock on day two when I'm sitting in the room and there's no one around. You know, like only two weeks, that goes away fast. And then you look at your watch and like only 17 minutes have gone, like time stops. Yeah.

And then you start thinking, what am I missing with my children? Why, what's the point of this? Like, this is, what am I doing? And you start to flip out. So, and then, but then you learn about yourself, you know, like, well, what am I missing? What am I not, what am I doing in the day? You know, that. Well, it, it, it, I'm sure it makes it very clear the extent to which you're first of all like addicted to the device Because we're never put in a position where we have to be away from it, you know And then it becomes so real like oh my god, like I can't I can't distract myself. I can't you know

Salve my you know boredom by just watching a video or scrolling through whatever social media platform. I know And you know, it's interesting, even if you go out of a movie for two hours, you're separated from your phone, maybe, or maybe you're checking it during slow points in the movie, but the second the movie's over, you grab your phone and you respond. You feel like, and what happens is,

and you know, everybody knows this, but someone emails you, you feel like you have to respond immediately. Well, that means they control your time. And that's every day times 50, right? Like every time you get a text. And if you don't, I just emailed you. Why don't you email me back? And getting away from it all, like one thing I was very aware of, like, do I really care that someone is posting a picture of themselves drinking a Corona in Mexico right now on my

Facebook page and like, I'm not responding to it. No, I don't miss that at all. And I became very clear. It became very clear what is important, but also things that aren't important that I spend a lot of time on during the day. Such as? Such as TV, sporting events. I went during the final during the March Madness so I probably would have watched 200 hours of basketball you know or something like that and I didn't miss it at all I didn't think about it I wasn't really even curious about it because I was so separated from it and I was I became super present in all the tasks that I did. And I realized that during the day, I'm rushing to complete a task to get to the next task so I can do as many tasks as

I can do in a day. Because that equals cross it off my to-do list and that equals accomplishment. With the monks, everything was monotasking. It's like if the chore today was to clean the church, which I did a lot, there was no time. It's like when you're done and it's perfect, leave the church and go to the next task. You know what I mean? So it was like- But be fully present.

Fully present. With everything that you have for that task. Yeah. So when the monks come to go to the monastery, they pledge all their possessions to the monastery. So they have zero possessions. And, you know, obviously they live a very simple life, but a very full, like, you know, very full life and a very strong sense of community. I realized how important, like, you know, very full life and a very strong sense of community.

I realized how important like, you know, community is. One thing that I want to work on at home, you know, is just a hundred years ago, it was all about community. And now that our worlds are very, way, way smaller, I found at least in my life. So yeah, it was just really interesting to see how happy people could be with so little and how much energy, mental energy and clarity was freed up by not having to worry about so many things that are irrelevant.

Right. Is that the biggest takeaway? that are irrelevant. Right. Is that the biggest takeaway? You know, what was interesting for me, there was so many small little takeaways. You know what, there was something with small little takeaways for me, but for me, and it goes back to what we were talking about

earlier about experiences, they give you a layer. They give you an edge. As you do different experiences and try different things, you get a different layer added to rich roll. He goes up- Like another ring on the tree or whatever. Another ring on the tree. And it's something you can always tap into. And the takeaway wasn't like, oh, here's the specific takeaway. Everyone knows to be present. Everybody knows if you slow down and meditate, there's benefits. Everybody knows that they shouldn't be on their phone

as much as, we're not at all do it. We all know all that stuff. And yeah, that was all reinforced and simplicity was reinforced. And I love my wife and my kids obviously was reinforced. But when I left the monastery and the driver picked me up and he said, how was it? How do you feel?

My answer was proud. It was another layer for me of something that I said I was gonna do that was super hard. And I was proud of myself for not giving up at day seven and sticking to it. Now, there are times when my kids have, you know, they're going crazy. They're out of control or something, they're having a

meltdown. And I've definitely found myself to be more patient and more present. And that was a good lesson, but it's a layer in me that I can tap into when I need it. Right. So when you come back, how do you re-acclimate and do you end up kind of, so you have that extra layer, but I would imagine it's like, okay, well, the phone's back in the picture. Like, have you reframed your relationship to the phone, for example, or do you slowly just sort of revert back to like what you were doing before with a little bit more awareness, but perhaps, but kind of essentially being the same dude? Well, I realized that I wanted a lot of things that they had, but I didn't want to give up a lot of things that I had.

And I did gradually, it was hard to reenter. I went from a very quiet, no music, no kids, no TV, everyone's talking like this slowly to a very like rambunctious, like crazy household with four kids under eight that have, you know, it was hard. It took me a while to, and I lost a ton of weight. So it took me like a while to just get back into the flow. And now I would say that I still am checking my phone before I get up. But there's other areas. For example, when I went around day nine or 10,

at the monastery, all the decisions are taken away from you. So they say that the average American makes between 30 to 60,000 decisions a day. It's exhausting. We only have a limited amount of energy. At the monastery, all the decisions are taken away from you. You eat when they tell you to eat. You eat what they give you. You wear one outfit.

I showered one time I was there. No one cared. There's no, there are no decisions. There's no like, well, there's not like you have Netflix, Hulu, and 8,000 channels and like short circuit. There's so much you don't even know what to watch. You're like, fuck it.

I'm just going to go to bed. There are no decisions. When that kicks in, the amount of energy that you get is over. don't even i didn't know what to do with myself i walked 120 miles up and down their driveway while i was there i had so much energy and clarity like my to do i just organized my entire life and i when i came home the first morning my wife woke up and we were in the kitchen and she said to me, I'm going to take the kids to school. I'm like, great, sweetie. And she's like, I'm gonna take

the blue car. We have two cars. I'm like, great, take the blue car. And then she came running and she's like, nope, I decided I'm going to take, I think I should take the silver car because I want to maybe go to Whole Foods and with the trunk space. I'm like, great, take the silver car. And then she came in a minute later. She's like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. I'm taking the blue car. Cause I'm going to, I'm like, Sarah, do you know how much energy you just use on a meaningless decision? Like you just spend 15 minutes debating in your head

what car to take. And then I realized that like, we do that all day long and it's exhausting. It's exhausting. So how do you take that awareness back into your life and streamline things so that you're eliminating a lot of that decision fatigue? So the first thing I did was I got a journal,

and I just, anytime I have a thought or something I have to do, I get it out of my head and I put it on paper. Now, that doesn't mean it goes away. I still have to do it, but it's not, I don't have to use the energy to remember it. Oh, I have to get little Ralph an eight-year-old birthday party for Sunday's birthday.

I'll just write it down. And now I know I never have to think about it again. I'll look at my journal at night and in the morning, but I started just dumping everything out of my head, every idea. I keep it with me everywhere I go. And it's just a running list. So it doesn't stay.

We keep so much in our head. And for me, it's worked. It's like a two journal system. I have one book where I have all my thoughts and to-dos and this and that. And then on a daily basis, I take out the key things I have to do that day and take them off the list.

And you know what I realized, Rich? If I lost the master book with 10,000 things, nothing in my life would change. It wouldn't change, right? Yeah, like life would go on. I've often thought like, I wonder what would happen if I just- Hit delete.

Selected all my emails and just deleted all of them. Because I just, there's no way I'll ever get to inbox zero. It's a losing battle and it creates so much stress and anxiety in me. Like, oh, I should be getting back to all these people. And I can't imagine. I mean, this is an epidemic amongst most people, right? We're constantly in this state of anxiety because we're not able to manage

like just our basic communication. When I went off email for 15 days, when I came back, the first thing that I said is I'm never going back on email. And I have, I have, but it is a goal of mine. It is a goal of mine. I don't know how realistic it is in today's world, but how amazing would that be? If you need me, you have my cell,

those that need me have my cell phone that really need me. The owner of the Baltimore Ravens told me that he is off email completely. Yeah, well, there's always those baller guys. They can do it. You know, it's like, it's a different situation. Well, a lot of people are going analog now.

They're just kind of printing, you know, the emails out and keep, you know, tracking it a different way. But I don't know. But it would be amazingly freeing to do it. I'm not there yet. I know. It's like, it's a weird, like, fantasy. I mean, look, we're the last generation that knows what it's like to live without the internet, right? Like we're in a very unique situation because we grew up without it and now it's omnipresent and there will never ever be another generation of people who had that experience that we had, right? So having like one foot on one side of it

and one foot on the other side of it, like we know what it was like without it. And is life better with it? You know, with all these decisions of it and one foot on the other side of it, like we know what it was like without it. And is life better with it? You know, with all these decisions and all these complications that we have? Probably, but- I don't know. I think my parents- There's something about like that, that I kind of wish we could go back to. If you were to ask my parents or your parents, they would probably say life was better 10 or 20 years ago. I don't know. Think about how our parents got around. When my mom dropped me off at school or at play date or at the park or whatever, and then she went to the grocery store, my father had no way of getting in

touch with her. Like if there was an emergency or like, oh honey, we forgot, can you get an extra loaf of bread? She'd have to come home and put it on the list for next week. There was no way like instant. I mean, I've been on a route to get groceries or whatever and gotten an alert, you know, something from my wife being like, no, go pick up our son at the soccer game immediately

and then go to, I forgot. And you change your whole life. Well, in those moments when you are out of touch because someone's phone died, like it inst And you change your whole life. Well, in those moments when you are out of touch because someone's phone died, like it instills like almost like a panic. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I think there's gotta be a balance,

but we're getting bombarded and it's overwhelming, man. It's not good for us. So when you were writing this book, did you do it in the same vernacular and style as the seal book, like sort of blog entry, like experiential? I mean, that would be something, were you doing that when you were at the monastery going back to the room every night and contemporaneously writing your, what was going on? So I struggled with the book. I struggled with it during the process. And you've gone through it as you've written a book, multiple. Because first of all, I felt a tremendous amount of pressure after the seal book. Because with the seal, I had no expectation. I didn't even really promote the seal book initially

because I was scared. Like what if people don't like it? I wanted to get it, I didn't know how the game was played. You know how the book game is played, big sales week one and all that stuff to get on the New York Times bestseller. And there's a lot of shenanigans. There's all these shenanigans. And I was like, man, I'm not playing the shenanigans.

I don't, and I was getting pressure from the publisher on how to do all that stuff. I don't want to do it. So I put it out. Let's see if people like it. Kind of like how you started your podcast. And then, you know, if they like it, we can get momentum and wins will build on it. And then because the book was successful

and ultimately went on to be a bestseller. Okay, how do, well now what if the second movie isn't as good as the first movie? This is a completely different book. So I felt that the whole way. Every page, is it funny? Are people gonna, is there a takeaway? You know, I started like really analyzing it.

So it took me a while until I got into a rhythm and it's set up similar. There's, you know, the time that it took to get me to the monastery and kind of what got me there. And this revelation I had on the top of Mount Washington about time and my relationship with time, which kind of led me to the monastery in a way. And then there's a 15 day diary

and then there's 10 specific takeaways in the book. Yeah, so it the book. Yeah. So it's similar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like it, but I can imagine, yeah, that pressure. Cause that book was so, I mean, that book was super successful, Living With The Seal. So now you gotta like, you gotta top it, right?

Or do I? Yeah. You know, I mean, I, yeah, but I mean, you want to, but my, you know, you just, projects like this, you know, you have to have thick skin. You have to have thick skin and you're so vulnerable because people put reviews out on Amazon. You can give someone a sixth grade that's like, Rich was an asshole. Yeah, I know.

Well, and also it's such a, I mean, it's your experience. So the review, if there's a negative review, they're kind of reviewing you as a person, you know? It's not like you wrote a novel. But it's your experience. So the review, if there's a negative review, they're kind of reviewing you as a person. It's not like you wrote a novel. But it's like anything in life. You're here for a hundred, no one's gonna be around in a hundred years. Is that gonna be enough to stop you?

The fear that you might get a bad review is the fear that your product might get critiqued or someone that might not like Zico coconut water or have a bad flight, so we're not gonna start Marquee Jet. You know, you have to go with like, the bigger the risk you take, the bigger the reward. Right.

I know what your third book should be. You wanna live together? No, not with me, no. It's so obvious, dude. What's that? Living with Sarah. I know. You know what I mean? Like she's such a unique person, right? And you always describe her as like, you know,

one part Lucille Ball, one part Einstein, but like, you know, that in and of itself, I mean, how your marriage works and, you know, how you guys parent your kids, I mean, you know, I think would be super interesting. Yeah, I would love that. She's so interesting to live with because one thing that Sarah does really, really well

that I do terribly is she's really good at accepting criticism. And when I get criticized, I'm immediately defensive. Probably like most of our listeners are, fuck you. What are you talking about telling me? You don't know what you're talking about. You get defensive. She takes it in and processes it

and is comfortable with that. And there's so many buckets of her life where she does things completely differently than most people that are like amazing life lessons. I get to live with that. Like, give me an example. Well, that's a good example. The way she parents, she really praises the effort.

She makes a big, I mean, I see it every day, emphasizing the effort and not the result. So, you know, instead of saying, oh, you dominated the basketball game, which none of my kids do, she says like, you practiced so hard and it really showed today, all that hard work, keep it up. Criticism is another one.

How she just, how important product is to her. Like I'm a rusher. I'm like, let's put it out there and we can always fix it. And she is a no. I mean, she spent two years working and perfecting her product Spanx, the first product that came out before she released it. She is working on a product now at Spanx.

It's like kind of her secret product. And they were in Italy and they've had all these teams of people working on it. And they all came, Sarah, the product, everyone we've tested it. We've worn the product. We're so excited about it. And Sarah said, can I put it on? And everyone's in the room and the guys flew in from Italy that had been working on it. And she put on the product and she's like, send it back. It's 97%, but it's not there.

It's 97%, but it's not there. And she just, you know, I think most people would probably be okay with that, but I don't think, you know, Elon Musk would. I don't think, you know. Right, it's at that Steve Jobs level of perfectionism. Yeah, in a positive way. It's like, you know, in looking at it through the lens of the customer

and looking at it through the lens of the competitor. Like, yeah, maybe everybody else is comfortable at 95%, but the gold is in the last 5%. And this company is where it's at because of that. Without question. I think I was at the Museum of Modern Art and I saw Spanx there and I took a picture and texted you. I was like, that's so bizarre, you know?

But that speaks to what you're saying, right? Like it doesn't, that happens because you have somebody at the helm who's providing that attention to detail. Yeah. But at the same time, just based on like, you know, following you on Instagram, like she also seems like she's bananas.

She's bananas, which is fun. I mean, you know, and that's another lesson, just like her outlook on life. You know, she's had all this business success and she's done so much for so many people through her philanthropy and her efforts. Yet she has this completely Lucille Ball side to her. Right, like you guys travel and you get there

and she opens up the suitcase and there's nothing in it. Or like stuff like that. Yeah, she brought the wrong suitcase or like, you know. Yeah, like the other, I mean, the other day, I'm in California and obviously, and I called her to say goodnight. And I was saying, you know, I'm exhausted. You know, I just got, I flew in this today

and it was eight at night. And she's like, you're exhausted. It's only eight o'clock at night there. And I'm like, it's 11 o'clock. Like, you know, I just got here. Like, you know, like, what do you think if I went to China and it's one in the afternoon, I wouldn't be tired? It's like, what are you talking about?

So she has this other side to her that, but it's playful and it's fun and it keeps us young. So on some level, I mean, I don't know if you guys are opposites, but you do come at things in a different way. Like, and that's something I can relate to. My wife and I are very different. Like, how do you make that work in your marriage? Just being accepting, I think. I think a big part of marriage, I'm not a marriage expert for all, I think a big part of marriage, I'm not a marriage expert for all,

it's a work in progress for us and I'm sure for everybody. But if our movies and our heads aren't aligned, if her expectation is very different than my expectation, it's gonna lead to disappointment. So one of the things the monks did, which was interesting, is every Friday night, they have something called sharing. And all eight of them sit around and they talk about during the week, anything that anyone has done that pissed them off.

And they talk about the expectations going forward. So they're all on the same page and they all get everything out. Just getting all your shit out on the table. Right, and it's something that we just started doing. You know, like we've been married for 10 years and we've never, ever, ever sat down and been like, okay, let's talk about what our family goals are, what our individual goals are.

Like, what's bothering you about me? What's bothering me about you? And now we have this like once a month minimum sharing session where we go. And it's so helpful, man. And I realized like- Do you get defensive though? I do. I do, but now-

But she can hear it? She could hear it, but it's part of it. And she absorbs it. It's like, you know, I'm like yelling at her and she's like, that's a good point, sweetie. Let me process that. And I'll take, you know, thank you for sharing it. But, you know, but it's super helpful.

And I think, so that is, even though we're very different, you know, I eat fruit and bananas only in the morning and she loves Cheez-Its and, you know, we're opposite and we're opposite in some of our parenting styles too. I think that's a way to kind of bridge the gap because if we didn't, and she thought I was going to act one way and I'm like, what are you talking? You never told me that. You never told me that you wanted me to be asleep at nine o'clock, you know? And she bottles it inside, you know, it's going to ultimately lead down a bad road.

Yeah. I think that's super important because not only could you be walking around with totally different mental pictures of what you think your life should be about and where you're headed, you project that onto the other person. And it's all based on assumption because there's no communication. And I think that's where a lot of people just get into tons of trouble. Yeah, I do too. And I recognize that. I mean, and I didn't recognize it for a while. I had my own movie in my head. It was different than her movie.

Right. On even just the way we parent. What are the differences in how you parent? Good cop, bad cop, I think a little bit. I think we're aligned in the fact that we want our kids to see us do as many things that are hard and challenging that might result in failure as possible. So when Sarah was a kid, at the dinner table every Friday,

her father would ask her brother and herself what they failed at. And if she said, oh, I tried out for cheerleading and I failed, I didn't make the team, her dad would high five her. And he really just redefined failure as being effort and not trying versus putting the effort in. So we try to do the same thing.

For example, I took my son to a polar plunge that the fire department and police department were having at Lake Lanier in Georgia, where we live. And on the way there, he was five at the time and the water's freezing. I'm getting him so pumped up. We're listening to Rocky in the car and I'm grabbing him, like yelling at him.

He's yelling at me like, yeah, I'm gonna do this. We're gonna be amazing, man. And we get there and they blow the whistle and everybody runs into the water, except my son who's standing on the beach alone. He's like, I'm not doing that. He's like, I'm not doing that. He's like shivering.

He's the only smart one. Right, and now he's crying and everyone's looking at me and I'm like, oh my God, this is a disaster. So I went out of the water and I was like, no, this is amazing. You got to see, I loved it. And you got to cheer me on and thank you for supporting me and dah, dah, dah, dah.

But he's a shy kid and it affected him because he had to live with that disappointment. He felt like he disappointed me and that failure for a year. We go back next year, same thing, listening to Rocky, firing him up. They blow the whistle. He's the first one in. They blow the whistle to come out. He won't come out. I'm like, it's over, buddy. We did it. Get on out. And the lesson was if you stick with it and try again, and now you conquer it, even after you failed, that's a huge, powerful lesson. Right, removing the stigma.

The stigma, sticking with it. Or just using a different word altogether than failure. I mean, failure is just a terrible word. Yeah, yeah. So those kinds of things, I think, we're aligned in. And then Sarah's, I think I'm probably the bad cop, and she's probably the good cop. You strike me more as like, kind of like the coach, right?

You're like raising your kids, like you're the coach and they're the team. Yeah. But I mean, adventure is like a huge, I mean, this is like infuses everything that you do, right? So how does that like spill down into how you raise your kids? I mean, I just took my son who's eight

to Mount Washington in New Hampshire, and we slept outside in the snow in a minus 40 degree sleeping bag overnight. And it was phenomenal. And we trained for a month. I got him a pack, we went through it. We talked about the safety. He went to, we broke the ice and got water out of the stream and boiled it.

And he got to experience that. And, you know, I said to him when we were up there, you know, look around, his name is Lazer. I said, look around, there's no one out here and there's no kids out here. This is like a special moment. And, you know, you worked hard to get here. And we, I want you to like, we have to appreciate this. And I want you to, we have to appreciate this.

And he's like, dad, this is amazing. And A, we had the alone time together, which we have a ton of alone time, but I wanted him to experience the elements. I wanted him to experience something that was hard. I wanted him to feel victory and he's not super athletic. So this is a way that he can have his own victories and go and talk about it at school.

And I want him to do whatever he wants to do, but I want to expose him to as many different things as he can. Yeah, how old is he? He's eight. Eight, wow. Yeah, it was amazing. That's pretty intense for a new role. Listen, Rich, I got lectured before I went,

you know, how bad an idea this is. Well, if that went south, you'd be like, you know. At one in the morning, he said to me, it was pitch dark. I can't even see one inch in front of me. And it's, I'm talking, I'm saying it's pitch dark. And he says, dad, I have a flashlight, but you can't even see the flashlight, you know.

He says, dad, I'm cold, which is the last thing you want to hear on the, you know, it's minus five degrees. And I reach over to see where he is and feel his head and, you know, just kind of get his temperature and just see what's what. And as I reach over,

his sleeping bag is completely covered in snow because it was snowing. Right. And I said to him, get in your bag and don't come out. And cause there's no way to get down. We're two and a half miles up and there's no light, no trail. This is impossible.

And there's no humans around. So he woke up at like nine the next morning and everything was cool and he slept great. But it was a moment of near, I didn't sleep one minute. Yeah, you're like, oh man, this could have been a bad idea. This is so bad, I'm like, I'm gonna have to put them in my bag and I'll just bundle up.

But it ended up being fine and he loved it and we're going back. Wow, did you do like a Mount Washington expedition when you were doing like 2017 of everything? I just remember like on Instagram, like you guys were, it was dark and you were with your buddies or something like that, going like in the middle of the winter

to go climb up Mount Washington. It was a bad idea. Yeah, it didn't work out, right? No, it didn't. Yeah, none of us were experienced. We didn't have a guide. You were fired up though. I was so fired up.

And we got about a quarter of a mile to the summit, but it was so hairy out. I mean, it was like 50 mile an hour winds and it was minus 30 and it was getting dark. It was about, well, we wouldn't have enough time to get down for it. So we aborted about a quarter of a mile from the summit. When we got home, I told my wife,

like I was so disappointed because I invited all my friends and kind of guaranteed we would get up there and we didn't. And I'm like, we failed. And she was like, sweetie, you know, go back next winter, get a tour guide that can help you navigate the mountain and train for it and break your boots in.

And I'm like, next winter, I'm going back on Saturday. Because, and I did. And we went back five days later. And then- All the same guys? Same guys. And we summited it. And the reason was like, and I did, and we went back five days later and all the same guys, same guys. And we summed it and we summited it. And the reason was like, there was no, I said to her, like, there is no guarantee is exactly what we're talking about in the beginning of the podcast. There's no guarantee what next winter looks like. What if I break my leg next winter? What if next

winter, the world changes and we can up next winter. I'm going Saturday. Urgency. And I'm glad I did. And check it off. And you guys made it. We made it. It was phenomenal. Have you ever done any cold, like winter camping?

No. It's a whole different animal. And it is so, it's thrilling. It's like, it's amazing. It's amazing. I hadn't either. Do you have a desire to do, you know, these crazy Alpine expeditions like Everest and the like?

Not Everest, Colin O'Brady asked me to do Denali this year, but the dates didn't, this summer, but the dates didn't work. But yeah, not Everest just because of the time commitment and the risk. I'm not, I'm not a thrill seeker like that, but I do, I, I did love Washington. I want to do, you know, every year as I plan out my year and my five years, that's something on my, on my list every year. What else is on the five-year list?

Well, I have, I don't have a five-year list as far as other than that. And I have a bucket list instead of a bucket list. And on my bucket list are probably 10 things, you know, just things I've always wanted. I want to ride my bike cross country. I found a loophole in the NCAA regulations, actually. And I have eligibility to recruit. So I want to go try to make like the Virginia crew team

or Harvard crew team. Really? Yeah, yeah. Hold on a second. You can go back to college and your eligibility will still stand? There's a loophole as it relates to crew. Just crew? Yes.

Uh-huh. Maybe some other sports too. So this is the other book? I don't know if I'm going to do a book, but I am going to do it. So- You're going to enroll in college. Well, here's the deal. So most of the high-end, all of the high-end Division I sports teams are sanctioned by the NCAA. Right.

And all the elite teams are Division I teams, et cetera, et cetera. and all the elite teams or division one teams, et cetera, et cetera. As it relates to crew of the top 20 teams, some of them are club teams, which are not sanctioned by the NCAA, which means if you take three or four credits at the school and you can make the team, regardless of how old you are or whatever,

because it's not sanctioned by the league, it's a club team. If you're part of the school, you can do it. So I can go make the Virginia crew team, which is like, I think a top 20 team and row in the NCAA tournament or whatever by taking three credits there. So like, if I want to go row in University of Georgia,

as long as I'm good enough to make the team, I could do it tomorrow at 50. Yeah, you got to do that. Absolutely. Have you rowed crew before at all? So what happened was I realized that a friend of mine's son who rose to GW when he was a junior in high school, the way this whole thing came to be,

I was following him. And the way they give out crew scholarships is they get the elite rowers in high school to a school in like BU or something. They put them on an erg, a rowing machine, and they time them in the 2000 meter. That, cause it eliminates, you know, currents and wind and body weight and all that stuff.

If you can row a 620 to a 625 2000, they basically hand you a scholarship. So I looked at the elite, the guys that were getting like 615, 620, like the elite guys were like 64, 185. I'm like, that's like my frame. Like I'm 6'3", I could be 185 if I wanted to. So I'm like, I got to see if I can row, how fast I can row 2000. So I'd read that like Cam Newton broke seven minutes and like threw up in a bucket. Like rowing a 615 2000 is brilliant. It's like, that's a proper, proper athlete.

And I was nowhere close. So it became a goal. Like, all right, you know, I got to knock a minute. I got to knock a minute off and get my SATs up a little bit. So are you training for that right now? It's on my radar, absolutely. I bought two Ergs.

It's like very George Plimpton, you know? Well, you know, it's like, why not? I mean, I think it would be, how fun would that be? I mean, I think it would be super fun. Because you're going back to college too, right? Yeah, absolutely. Hey, what are we doing after practice? I said to Sarah, when I discovered this thing, I'm like, you know what? Would you be willing to move to Cambridge? You too, right? Yeah, absolutely. Hey, what are we doing after practice? I said to Sarah, when I discovered this thing,

I'm like, you know what? Would you be willing to move to Cambridge? You know, Harvard? That would be so funny. Like, let's see if we can get a broker in Boston that can get us a nice little apartment. So you can recruit, your kids are like, what, you're doing what, dad?

But what I am doing, Rich, is as I turn 50, I mentioned this to you, I have certain things that I wanna kind of semi-master that I always wanted to kind of be good at, but I'm not good at. And I'm gonna bring in instructors around those 50 things for my own birthday present to myself. Right, you were talking about this before the podcast.

So like everything from like ping pong to what? Ping pong to free diving, to wake surfing, to chess, to ballroom dancing, you know, just 50 different things. I'm going to try to have an instructor live with me for a week for each of those disciplines and see if I can kind of semi-master them to the best of my ability. You will not want to play me in ping pong a year from now. Right. Or chess. Well, I mean, a week, you're not going to be able to master anything in a week, but exposure. I'll get better. Yeah. And I'll learn a little bit about each of those kind of disciplines.

And time will slow down. It is true. like it is that weird thing as you get older, like it does go so fast, but when you're trying to learn something new, that's where the clock, your relationship with the clock changes. It does. And isn't that what we all wanna do, slow down the clock? We do, you know, and it's weird how we have this idea

of what 50 should look like. Like, you know, I mean's weird how we have this idea of what 50 should look like. Like, you know, I mean, dude, when my dad was 50, I thought like, well, this dude's ancient, you know? And I don't know whether it's like a generational thing, like the vitality that, you know, 50 year olds have now versus then, or whether it's like a socialization thing, but I feel like, I mean, yeah, I don't feel 24, but like, I don't feel like what I thought 50 was supposed to feel

like. Well, you know what, a hundred years ago, you know what the life expectancy of an American was? It was like 30, right? Yeah, 45. So because we were lucky enough to be born, you know, 40, what, 50, I was 60, so 40 years later, we basically have almost double the life,

basically live twice as much life just because of how lucky we were. And at the current rate, if life expectancy continues to expand like that, think about this. If it was 45, 100 years ago, and now it's 75, that means that in theory at that pace, humans could live to be 500.

No, you shake your head, but think about it. I didn't shake my head. I was just letting it sink in. Yeah, now- Well, look at the trajectory. Look at the trajectory. Now, maybe you're self, but why not? Well, if they get stem cell stuff figured out

and they get telomeres figured out and they get, you know, I mean- Well, maybe if we all- Things are getting crazy, you know, in terms of what's happening with technology. So I feel like nothing's off the table. At a minimum, we're gonna turn into some kind of weird, you know, cyber hybrid, you know, kind of thing. Well, the flip side of that is I heard that Stephen Hawkins,

before he, probably the greatest. Stephen Hawking. Hawking. Yeah. I'm sorry. Probably one of the greatest minds of our generation, right? I mean, science minds predicted that unless humans inhibit, inhabit, inhibit. I don't know where you're going. Okay. Finish. predicted that unless humans inhibit,

inhabit, inhibit now. I don't know where you're going. Okay. Finish. Okay, I'll finish. A different plan, get existence on a different planet. That the human race on earth would be wiped out in 500 years because of either famine, overpopulation, disease, war. He made that before he died,

I believe he revised that prediction to a hundred years. If he's right, and we only had a hundred years of, I'm not talking about us on earth, but our humanity, how would that change the way you live your life? It would change it dramatically. And it would change the way you raise your kids, you know? And there's no guarantees. I mean, the way that the world is shaping up and, you know, I could see why

that would be a possible prediction to make. And when you think of it through that lens, it changes the course of the way you want to live your life. And, you know, it's just interesting to hear different theories and different opinions around time, around longevity. And when you start looking at through a different lens, as we did with our parents earlier,

you have a different appreciation, a different urgency, a different set of what's important and what's not important. And then you make shifts, fundamental shifts in the way you wanna live your life and who you wanna spend your time with. Yeah. The idea that in a hundred years, humankind could be gone is a trip.

But when you look at the extent to which, you know, we're overpopulating the planet and our, you know, lack of regard for how to do it in a sustainable way, I think it's a very real prospect. And to reframe it that way, that's super interesting. I've never heard anybody put it that way. Like, what if in a hundred years,

there's no more human beings? How does that change how you look at what you're gonna do today? If you knew that was factual, you'd probably travel more. You'd wanna see more of the beauty of the world. You'd probably, you know, won't be on your phone as much.

You wouldn't be sitting there liking and texting and retweeting and doing all that stuff. You know, and we have a vision of what we think it's gonna be. But what if it's not? And what if it was gonna happen? What if that did happen? It's fascinating to think about, man.

And like, you know, that's the shit that happens when I've turned 50. I'm like, you know, in my head, it's the pillow. And it's just like, oh my God, man. You know, if I do have, you know, my head, it's the pillow. And it's just like, oh my God, man. I've, you know, if I do have 30 years left, me personally, it's like, it just, it changes a lot of things for me. And it's a lot different than my thought pattern when I was 20.

What was your thought pattern at 20? No consequences for my actions, you know, wanting, trying to make money. When I was 20, I was laughing at jokes that weren't funny, you know, going to meetings and wanting to get a sale or sell a marquee jet card. And I'd be like, you know, very often I'd be in a meeting and I'd be like, this guy is not my kind of guy.

You know, this is not my kind of guy. And then he would tell a joke and I'd be like, ah, because I wanted to make it. Yeah, putting the mask on. Yeah, and it didn't feel good. It didn't feel good in those situations. What does happiness look like for you now? I mean, I know you gave a TED talk about this.

I did, it's a lifestyle. It's not a decision. It's not a happiness is for me, it looks like a lifestyle and doing the things that it really is. It's a lot of, I think a lot of people look at happiness as a decision, like, oh, I want to be happy now. And I look at it more of how I choose to live my life, doing things that make me happy with the people that make me happy. There's so much power behind like the momentum of our daily habits, you know,

and you know, as somebody who's like always, you're always putting yourself in these new situations, like that's very different from how most people live. Like, you know, they get up, they go to their job, you know, whether you're living for the weekend or whatever, you kind of have your routine. And as you age, it's easier and easier to settle into that and more and more difficult to like think creatively out of the box about what the

possibilities, you know, may be. So, you know, how do you, you're going around, you're giving all these talks and talking to all these people, like, what are you telling them? Like, how are you getting people to, you know, to try to like jackhammer them out of like their worldview? Well, I think one thing is I encourage people to put something big on their calendar every year, circle it, commit to it, tell the world. So you have, it's easy to tell the world now with social media, so you have accountability.

And I feel like if you follow through with that big event or challenge or whatever it is, I believe that the benefits are so great, they last a lifetime potentially and it becomes somewhat addicting. So that's one thing I really encourage people to do. One very simple thing that I suggest doing is when I was on top of Mount Washington

with one of my friends, when I took my son, he took his daughter. There were four of us. I said to him, he's a police officer. And, you know, one of the happiest guys I've ever met, I assume is not super wealthy. You know, he works for the local police department, but mega happy.

And I said to him, I said, Kevin, how many of these trips do you take? We're sitting in our sleeping bag at midnight. It's pitch dark. And he said, you know what? I take one trip a year with my high school friends. And I'm like, I gotta do that because I only see my high school friends

once every five years. That means I only see them like six more times. That's unacceptable. I can do that. And then he said, I take one trip, one or two trips. Every other month, I take a trip for myself. I just ran the LA marathon. I did whatever. And then I take, I take one trip, one or two trips. Every other month, I take a trip for myself. I just ran the LA Marathon. I did whatever.

And then I take a family trip. So every other month, he takes a weekend and he circles it. And he does something with his family or friends or whatever. I call it the Kevin rule. I'm like, if I can't take one weekend out of every eight weekends of my life to do something with people that I love

or that I want to do, then I'm living out of balance completely. And that's an easy thing to do. And most of those things don't cost money. Mount Washington, there's no, it's free to park. There's no cost to go climb the mountain. They may have to get gear, but most of those things don't cost.

And they don't have to be physical. It could be like, I want to be in a book club or whatever. And that's a very easy thing to do. But so few of us do it, honestly. And why do you think that is? Like what's holding people back? It's easy and comfortable to be in your pattern, in your routine.

It's very hard to break habit, food habits, daily habits, anything. And, you know, and people are very set in their ways. That's A. And then B, they're told what to do. It's like, we have a universal playbook, you know, work your ass off and take two vacations a year. You know, and like, that's not living for me.

And it has nothing to do with where I am in my life now. When I was 20, I'm doing the same shit, Rich, I was doing when I was 21. I run every morning for an hour. I eat fruit till noon. I have the same friends. The same shit gets me off. You know, it's like, I just, it might be,

it's just grander, but there's a playbook and the playbook is broken. If you look at the playbook, you know, with divorce rate at 40, 50%, what, 40% of American males are obese. I think something like 66- That's probably higher than that. Higher than that.

66% of American adults are unhappy. There's a Harris survey that just came out about that. It's like, I want to say it's like, I don't have the exact stat, but it's, I think it's like 65%, it's even more, percent of all Americans over 35 don't have over a thousand dollars in savings. I mean, the playbook's broken. It's broken. And then you go to this monastery where these guys are living this super simple life and they're happy. And you hear this from anybody who travels from, you know, you're in a small village in Peru or something like that, where people have nothing or Costa Rica and there's community and these people are engaged

and they're living longer and they don't have these diseases and they're not obese and they're not staring at their phones. And we're so judgmental. We have all these opinions about how people are supposed to live and we're such a prosperous nation. It's just, it's bizarre and disorienting that we've got so many things so wrong. And listen, if you love to work 80 hour work weeks and that's what you love to do, that's fine. I'm not knocking it.

All I'm saying is I think there are a lot of people, and I fall into this area sometimes myself, and I catch myself, that have dreams and aspirations of things that they always wanted to do, but it wasn't the right time or they didn't have enough money or they didn't have enough experience.

It's never the right time. You're never gonna have the right experience. And all of a sudden you wake up and you're 70. And that's my point. And you're like, God, I wish I could have done it. And I think if you were to interview 1,000 elderly people, they would all probably say the same thing. Like, I wish I would have done this then.

And once you become aware of that, the earlier you become aware of that, the fuller your life is. Why do you think you were able to become so aware of it? It's addicting. I did things early on and I was like, I love this. I don't love sitting in my office. It was very simple. I like to be outside. How do you build all these businesses without like sitting in an office? Because I did the Kevin rule. I always put a big, you know, I ran a hundred miles in the middle of Marquee Jet.

I ran at least a marathon a year in the middle of Marquee Jet. But the other thing is, you're like a huge relationships guy, right? Like you, I think you see and value, you know, what relationships are and can be. And that kind of is a through line that runs through everything that you've done.

Like just the fact that you're going and you're hiking these mountains with the cop or you wanna go on a trip with your high school buddies and you tell that story about like 50 Cent was your intern, like you never know who you're gonna be working with. It's all about relationships. It is, it is. And it's always, I think that's what happens

when you get a 980 on your SAT. You gotta build up, you gotta rely on the rules. You're hung up on the SAT, dude. You keep bringing it up. You know what? Because I think I got- It's like a thing for you. I got ridiculed as a kid to think about it.

Yeah, there's some pain around that, I think. They make such a big deal, right? What'd you get in your SAT? What'd you get in your SAT? I don't even remember. Where in my town, you know. It's a thing. It's a thing.

Yeah. I'll tell you something that's very interesting that just came into my head. I grew up in a really unique town. In my town, it was a small town. It was like Long Island? In Long Island. But in my town, we have two people that own

or are owners of professional sports teams. There's not that many professional sports teams. We have two. We have several people in my grade have gone to jail. Several have committed suicide. Bernie Madoff is from my town. The biggest Ponzi scheme, schemer ever. Everybody in my town went through the same school system,

same teachers, same movie theater, same restaurants, same everything. I was thinking about the other day, how in the world did that happen? Like how did Madoff evolve? And some people became billionaires and some people went to jail, but so many of the people had the same kind of,

in some ways, opportunity. And I've been trying to kind of crack the code and get my arms around it. I went to a high school reunion a year or two ago and I was just thinking about like this whole, on it. I went to a high school reunion a year or two ago, and I was just thinking about like this whole, my town and how this dynamic of this particular town, so much success yet so much, yet the biggest con artist ever, yet some people with amazing parents or whatever ended up in jail. It's like mind blowing to me. So what do you make of that?

I was hoping you would help me. Yeah, I don't know, man. What town was it? Roslyn. Yeah. I think it was just some people got, I think it was just the competitiveness, the decision-making.

This came to me because you were talking about the SATs and there was a lot of pressure in my town around where are you going to school? Are you going to Ivy League school? Are you going to this school? What'd you get in your SATs and there was a lot of pressure in my town around where are you going to school? Are you going to Ivy league school? Are you going to this school? What'd you get in your SATs? You know what I mean? I mean, I grew up around a lot of that.

Yeah. In DC, everybody puts on the, they have the sticker on the back of the car for the college and the high school. And it's all about that. Did you care? Yeah, I cared. I was super competitive about it,

but I was able to make it work. Like I was not a good student when I was younger, but I sorted it out by the time I was in like 10th grade. So I was able to play that game. Huh. Yeah. And make it work. But yeah, hyper-competent, it's like sports, you know? And there's so much weird ego that gets played into that

in a dysfunctional way with the parents as well, you know, that I think is really damaging. So I think you're right. I think all those elements came into play. It was just, you know, it's a little out there, but it just, it came into my head. Well, I just noticed it because you brought it up like three times.

Well, thanks for bringing, I'm not gonna get defensive about it. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. And you know what? I'm gonna- It's a pain point, dude. I'm gonna surrender it. You should. I'm gonna surrender it. I think you for bringing it to my attention. And you know what? I'm going to- It's a pain point, dude. I'm going to surrender it. You should.

I'm going to surrender it. I think you can put it to rest now. I don't think anybody fucking cares, dude. It was 35 years ago. I know, man. It's like, get over it already. But it's funny, like, those are the, like, I'm still hung up on shit that happened way back then, you know? And it's like, you're talking about, like, how we're reframing our lives in terms of time and having a broader perspective on it. And it's like, why do I allow myself to still like look back on this thing that happened and use either use it as an excuse or to, you know, kind of there's, there's like a weird morbid pleasure and like,

oh, how painful was that? You know what I mean? It's like, why can't I transcend that? It's so true. Well, thank you. This is like a therapy session for me. No, it's good. I've never surrendered it. Yeah, how long have you been going? We gotta wrap it up here.

Oh, we're an hour and a half. That's perfect. But all right, well, let's close it down with, and we've kind of already gone through this, but I always like to try to end it with a little bit of a lifeline for the person out there who, who, who's struggling, who's like, you know, in that job that isn't doing it for them, or, you know, maybe they just can't get off, off the couch, you know, whatever battle, you know, that person is waging, like, how do you shake that person up and, and get them to, you know, take action. Because I feel like so much of the podcast is

like, oh, here's all the information you need, but there's this gap between the information and the action, like the implementation part of it. And that's where people really struggle. Yeah. I think being aware of, you know, if I was going to summarize it, I would say, you know, think about the notion of building a life resume, put something on the calendar, you know, and circle it. I think that's really important. Be aware of your time and how you use it and who do you want to spend it with

and how do you want to spend it? Take action and realize that, you know, like the clock ticks. If you're in a bad situation at work, and I've been there, I've been there, you know, like the clock ticks. If you're in a bad situation at work, and I've been there, I've been there, you know, many times, or in a bad investment or bad partners, you know, if you let it go, all of a sudden it's like, the longer you let it go without taking action,

it's like an addict. Every second that the addict decides he's not, he or she is not gonna go to rehab, the odds of going go down taking action. It's like an addict. Every second that the addict decides he or she is not going to go to rehab, the odds of going go down so much, right? I mean, that's a true stat. Yeah, for sure. And it's no different than in life decisions like this. One of the things, maybe I'll wrap it up with this. One of the things that I, a takeaway that I write about in my book, one of the 10, things that I, a takeaway that I write about in my book, one of the 10, are two words that changed my life. And those words are remember tomorrow. When you have a split second decision that you have to make or whatever, remember how that decision is going to make you feel tomorrow.

You want to drop out of the marathon at mile 18? Fine. How are you going to feel tomorrow when someone says, how'd you do? You want to take off your shirt and drink tequila at the holiday party and dance on the table and swing around and be the life of the party. That's amazing at the party until tomorrow. And, you know, those two words, if you really think about it, when you have a key decision or you're at a critical juncture in something big, how are you going to feel when you make this decision tomorrow? And it comes to peer pressure with, you know,

decisions, with drugs, with whatever. And that's really, those words have really impacted me. You know, I'm gonna blow off the workout today. Rich, we went late, it's an hour and a half. You haven't worked out yet. You know what? It's already the afternoon. How are you gonna feel tomorrow about that? You're going to be pissed, right? So that's a

powerful thing. And any technique or tool or thing that you can give yourself to give you an edge and help you be better is amazing. And for me, those techniques come through trial and error, is amazing. And for me, those techniques come through trial and error, trying a bunch of different things. And it's not some expert telling me what to do. Yeah, maybe I'll try it, but I have to convince myself that it works, you know? And that's been something, those words have been two words that really have worked for me. Powerful, dude. I like it. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense. I think, I think. It makes sense for me. Well, I think, I think what you have to do is you got to, yeah, it's like you said, you got to find the strategy that works for you. There's a million ways to do it. You can canvas,

you know, a thousand successful people and they're all going to tell you, you know, a different approach to how they do what they do. And so when you, you know, like read a book or listen to a podcast and it's like, here's the morning routines of the most successful people. Well, that's great. You know, like, but they're different, right? What works for you? What resonates with you? That does come through trial and error. And you've got to find your own groove. Like you keep talking about like, oh, this lane that I'm in. It's like, you got to find your lane. Without question. And the only way you find that lane is by trying on a million hats. If someone with a lot of charisma tells you this

is what he or she does, they might be able to pull it off because they have a lot of charisma. But if you're introverted, it's going to be very difficult to follow that advice. Well, not only that, like if you're like, well, Richard Branson does this in the morning, the idea that if you mimic what Richard Branson does in the morning, that you're going to become Richard Branson is ridiculous. And I feel like there's a lot of disingenuous kind of snake oil out there that's around selling these kinds of ideas rather than on getting people to do the inside work to really figure out what makes them tick, to cultivate that sense of self that will ultimately be the most powerful guiding force to set you on the trajectory that you're meant to be on. Now, that's powerful. And you're right. It's what makes you tick. Right. And that only comes through... People want to short-circuit the inside job. They don't wanna go to the monastery for 15 days.

They don't wanna have to sit at the edge of the bed with nothing to do because that's not sexy, you know? That's hard and that's uncomfortable. But if somebody does wanna sidestep that, you're ultimately short circuiting your ultimate potential and success because it is that inner regard that ultimately will unlock what it is

that's unique about you that's gonna be your like ultimate success equation. I totally agree with you. I think we did it, dude. How do you feel? You feel great, man. I feel great, yeah. Good?

Ready to go to the tent. All right, man, let's do it. Awesome. So thanks so much, man. I appreciate it. You feel great, man. I feel great, yeah. Good? Ready to go to the tent. All right, man, let's do it. Awesome, so thanks so much, man. I appreciate it. That was super cool to talk to you. If you're digging on Jesse, you can connect with him online at 100 Mile Man. At the 100 Mile Man.

The 100 Mile Man. On both Twitter and Instagram, it's the same. Twitter and Instagram. It's cool. Living with the monks. Living with the monks, yeah. living with the monks living with the monks living with the monks coming out

end of May check that out and of course madeofdenali.com yeah you can go to madeofdenali if you're interested

in the channel just go to jesseitzler.com slash boundless also we'll take you there yeah cool man thank you so much for that Rich

awesome just appreciate you having me man thank you I really enjoyed it yeah cool thanks dude we'll do it again sometime thank you so much for that rich awesome just appreciate you having me man thank you i really enjoyed it yeah cool thanks dude we'll do it again sometime thank you man peace bananas we did it done deal wrap that one up like a birthday present do you feel good are you inspired i don't know that guy always just puts me right where I want to live. I hope you guys enjoyed it.

Please pick up Jesse's new book, Living with the Monks, and give him a shout out on Twitter at The 100 Mile Man or on Instagram at Jesse Itzler. Let him know what you thought of today's conversation. And as always, please take a moment to check out the show notes for links and resources related to today's conversation to expand your experience of this exchange beyond the earbuds. You can find all that on the episode page at richroll.com. Another reminder, the Plant Power Away Italia, our new cookbook, is out in the world in the wild. If you haven't done so already, pick up a copy or gift it to a friend.

I guarantee you this book is next level. We're so proud of it. The recipes are insanely delicious. or gift it to a friend, I guarantee you, this book is next level. We're so proud of it. The recipes are insanely delicious. 125 Italian plant-based recipes inspired by that region's rich culinary tradition. Also, my new revised updated version of Finding Ultra, also out in the wild, available on audiobook, on Kindle, and in paperback. If you want even more amazing plant-based recipes, recipes that perhaps are not Italian, check out our meal planner, meals.richroll.com. We have thousands of recipes, all completely customized based on your personal preferences. When you sign up,

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Embrace life. Live large. Be inspired by Jesseesse put it to work and i'll see you guys back here soon peace plants Thank you.