 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go Might pop might pop with your hosts Salda Stefano Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews So rich role like that what I knew of this guy. It's a badass. Yeah So I didn't know much about him except for this fuckers podcast is always highly ranked on iTunes He's always one of the top podcasts, right? Of course you bring that up first Well because that's how we knew that's how we first knew of this guy like when we first started minepump We looked at the top podcast and he's always owns it. He's always up there, and then we passed him a couple times What's up rich? But he's a super good dude super good guy. We actually went up to he's got a he's got a hell of a story Yeah, oh my yeah, and I love that He's like an open book when it comes to like battling addiction I think there's so many people that suffer with all these different types of addiction So I think that's a lot of where his success is very relatable. Yeah, you he definitely is very very transparent He's shared all of his story. He invited us in his home. I mean, that's what we reported the podcast a beautiful home I was a great home. He's he's your like he is a super achiever. He's one of those people that Pretty much anything he does he achieves at a high level. I mean he Went to Stanford University Cornell Law School was a successful lawyer before he got into the fitness space and now he's obviously dominating there with some Some top-selling books in the fitness space. Obviously. He's got a very popular podcast. It's the rich roll podcast And his website is rich roll com Here we are here. We are talking to rich roll man Tell us how you got started in all of this man. Let's go cuz we we see your podcast On the top of the charts. We started mine pump about three years ago and your podcast was always kind of up there Very interesting and I want our audience to know kind of what got you into Podcasts podcasting and fitness. Yes. Just talk about the whole thing. Yeah How far back do you want to go? Well, I was a I was a I was a swimmer growing up I swam at Stanford in the late 1980s Which at the time was the number one collegiate swimming program in the country We won in two ways two two of the years that I was there and You know, I was training with the guys that that you know held world records and American records and to a champions Olympic gold medalists and the like but I was very much a bench warmer. You know, I was not I was by no means a star and then I Never really fully achieved my potential as an athlete there I got more interested in partying drugs and alcohol kind of took center stage and that took me on a whole journey that Ultimately, I bottomed out at around age 31 ended up in rehab for a hundred days got clean and sober And then in the wake of that my life became all about trying to repair the wreckage that I'd created as a result of being irresponsible reprobate alcoholic and threw myself into into workaholism really I was a lawyer at the time and Was very much intent on on trying to get back on track and By the time I was in my mid mid thirties late thirties I was on the partnership track at a prestigious law firm in Los Angeles Had all the stuff met my wife. We were building this house had a really nice sports car in the driveway So from the outside looking in it looked like I had a pretty good life But on the inside I was kind of dying. I was dying spiritually. I was dying emotionally I was really like not happy in my career choices and And and very much unfulfilled and during that period of time in which I kind of transferred a lot of my alcoholic tendencies into workaholism I also wasn't taking care of myself physically like even though I was an athlete in college like that was done Did you know it though when you're going through there's this you looking back going I didn't give a shit You know, I was just like, you know, I just need to be like I'm I'm trying to achieve the American dream You know, that's what I was focused on and so my diet consisted of you know fast food basically, you know hitting the drive-thru on the way home take out Chinese at the law firm all that kind of stuff and and You know, that's fine You can kind of get by a little bit when you're in your, you know, 20s and your you know Metabolism is churning, but as you start to get older. Yeah, it's like it starts to add up And so by the time I was 39 I was about 50 pounds overweight So it's never like a super obese person or anything like that. I was just I look like a guy who like is a You know trying to be a partner in a law firm average riding an elevator up and down all day long Classic couch potato just didn't have good energy You know, just want all I want to do is park myself in front of the TV at night and just kind of unenthusiastic about my life And so what happened was? Shortly before I turned 40 I had a bit of a health scare where I was walking up that flight of stairs that you saw over there late one night after working a long day and had to pause half way up like winded out of breath Tightness in my chest like buckled over and how old are you 39? I was 39 at the time and it was scary You know heart disease runs in my family my grandfather Who I'd never met was also a champion swimmer captain the University of Michigan swim team in the late 1920s Olympic hopeful American record holder the whole deal died of a heart attack at 54 Well, despite never being overweight or not being a smoker or anything like that So my mom my whole life was like you gotta watch what you gotta watch what you eat And you're like, yeah, bup, bup, bup, you know, whatever, you know until you have that, you know your own reckoning experience so I had that experience and It's a longer story but really that was the beginning point like my bottom with lifestyle that was similar to my bottom with drugs and alcohol where I realized like I really need to make a change and I need to take that that process of changing my life as Seriously as I took getting clean and sober and that that kind of launched me into this Search for a new way of living that ultimately led me to adopting a plant-based diet Which repaired my health and allowed me to drop all this weight and feel good in my own body again and gave me the enthusiasm to To to move myself physically for the first time in a long time And so I began working out again very casually like I had no Interest or desire to returning to becoming a competitive athlete in my 40s. I just wanted to like not be Feel good. Yeah, I didn't want to tire around the waist And I wanted to be able to like have fun with my kids and not get worn out and all that kind of stuff but so you didn't take that kind of that addictive personality and apply it towards exercise at this point not initially not initially I Was very Diligent about once I I'd kind of figured out that eating plant-based was working for me. I became Pretty focused on trying to figure out how to do that, right? Did it feel good right away when you switched over within about seven to ten days? I felt a dramatic difference You know and I played around with a couple other ways of eating to no avail And this just seemed to really work for me And so and this was before all the documentaries and all the kind of stuff that has made it a little bit more mainstream Because this was back in I mean this was 11 years ago Yeah, because now you can test to see that there's different polymorphisms, right? Some people do respond very very well to a plant-based diet and other people, you know more in the other direction Yeah, and this was an experiment with an end of one I mean this was just me trying to pay attention to like what felt good for me and this seemed to be working and so I just Launched myself into into it and have never really looked back because it's always agreed with me But yeah, I mean what happened was, you know, I lost the way pretty quickly and every week I started feeling better and better. I went back to the pool. I you know, we live There's all these amazing trails right around here I started exploring them for the first time like I'd lived here for years without ever going out on them That's crazy And and I was improving really rapidly I'd never been a runner and my wife bought me a bike for my 40th birthday I'd never really ridden a bike before and And I had this experience about it must have been about three four months into this experiment Where I've been kind of working out regularly but nothing too crazy And I went out for a run on a local trail around here and Just had one of those experiences where everything clicks and you're kind of in this flow State ended up running like 24 miles that morning Way longer than anything So you're not you you're never really doing this. Well, I've been got yeah the bait the longest run I'd done up to that point was maybe six or seven miles You know, I'm sure you have those days in the gym where you just feel like unbreakable Yeah, well you nailed it you hit flow state when you hit flow state like that everything just And so I had this crazy experience and and I thought like either I just unlocked some crazy dormant gene That I didn't know that I had or there's something about this lifestyle That's agreeing with me in a way that I didn't initially realize or some combination of those two things and that's what started getting me interested in in In in my own inner potential, you know Because because it hadn't been that long since I was sort of a couch potato I was like, wow in a very short period of time like I've made some pretty drastic significant changes What would happen if I pushed the envelope on this like where could I take this and And I think it was fueled in part by the fact that I didn't Achieve my potential as a swimmer in college And so there were some unfinished business there to attend to I think that had always bugged me and So that's what kind of got me Interested in the world of ultra endurance sports Where do you think the self-awareness came for for you? Are you always a self-aware person or are you kind of valuing where they come from? Which what do you mean self? Well, I mean even like what you're talking about right now like you you are sharing this like a lot of people are just Not in touch with how exercise affecting their body how nutrition is affecting their body You have this scare and now all of a sudden you're paying attention to all this or were you paying attention to things like that before? I mean was it that that really propelled this? I don't that's an interesting question. I don't know if I've ever really been asked that question in that way before I think because Because 12 step had had repaired my life so dramatically as a result of getting sober and being part of the recovery community here in Los Angeles, I was aware that that I was aware That people are more capable of change than we believe right because not only had I changed dramatically I'd been first-hand witness to seeing a lot of my friends repair their lives like coming back from You know Like I was a pretty pedestrian drunk, right? But I have friends who were just you know living on skid row gutter rat heroin addicts like Or friends that were literally look like they were clinically insane like bouncing off the walls and I'd seen them Become productive members of society and it's pretty dramatic when you're when you're kind of there to watch that evolution and so I think that experience made me realize that we put a cap on our own potential in other areas And I think the diet thing kind of further illuminated that for me and made me start to think about Well, where else am I turning a blind eye to what I'm capable of and I think You know the world of ultra endurance sports seemed like a pretty good template to kind of explore that question for myself Now did this further your interest in self growth in other areas as well besides fitness? To an extent. Yeah, uh You know, most of my self growth at that time was was being pursued through through the recovery community Um, this this seemed initially more like oh, I want to be an athlete again And it's it's turned and grown into much more than that Because I think the process of training for these races is an exercise in mindfulness and its own right you have to spend so much time with yourself and You know, although one of the the the steps in 12 step is meditation It doesn't really get as much attention as it should and so I started getting involved in meditation and exploring that and You know my podcast which you know came much later Uh, as you guys as we were kind of talking about before the podcast Like you get exposed to all these amazing people that That that kind of energize you to explore other areas of your life And and so a lot of the personal growth stuff has come You know in recent years as a result of the experience of doing of doing what you guys are doing Did you ever have any chance? So I I battled with addiction. Um, and mine was painkillers And and I had friends same real similar stories And something that I noticed common with with all of us was we tend to trade one for the other at first Yeah, did you ever ever deal with that where you okay? Sure? I moved on from that but didn't realize like oh now I'm just becoming so consumed with something else Yeah, the thing I think that a lot of people don't realize about about addiction is that the drug Or the alcohol whatever this if it's a substance-based addiction Um, that is the solution not the problem You know, that's the solution that works for a while to an under underlying malaise or problem That if left on a dress, even if you take away the substance remains and will continue to fester, right? And I think that's not initially self-evident to most people. They get sober. They think I'm I'm gonna quit drugs and alcohol I'm gonna be cool now. They don't realize now. They're gambling now They're sitting yeah, they're sitting with like all of these emotions without the tools to deal with it, right? And so you see a lot of that you see a lot of acting out with different kinds of behavior Whether it's uh, you know gambling or sex or sex or shopping or television Whatever, it doesn't matter what it is any any behavior to take you out of the moment to Help you escape from whatever discomfort that you're experiencing, right? So recovery is true sobriety is like addressing Those emotional problems and working through them so that you can be comfortable on your own skin But that's a process and that takes many years The only way is through the only way is through so In early years of sobriety a lot of people most people myself included will act out in different ways, right? So, you know, I channeled a lot of that into workaholism and into food addiction Like I would hear people talking about food addiction and I'd be like, what are you talking about? You know, meanwhile, I'm going to in and out and like wendys or mcdonald's every day You know, I'm totally unaware that I was medicating myself through my food choices That that was a way to like salve whatever wounds I had that still remained for me to to deal with, right? And so yeah, I did that for a long time and slowly developed self-awareness of that and I still, you know Look, I got a million character defects and my I'm an extreme person by nature and and I want to act out in a million different ways And you can use Whatever, you know, you can use running swimming cycling triathlon ultra endurance all these sorts of things Can be used addictively or alcoholically, right? It's about your relationship to those and and I've had experiences where I see myself moving in that direction because People will say like, oh you do these crazy long races. You just transferred your addiction on to something else And a lot of people because there's a lot of people in recovery that get into ultra sports, you know It's like, oh the pain, you know, it's like there's something about it that's attractive that you see lots of people With tons of tattoos and tons of you know, tons of people who have been, you know drug addicts and the like um So I always say, yeah, you know, yeah, there's an element to that. That's true, of course um, but for me The drug or the drink was always the easy choice the way out and like doing these events is hard, right? It requires discipline. It requires a whole battery. You have to be healthy in maturity To deal with it. Um, you can have an unhealthy relationship with it, but I'm also a father. I've got four kids I'm married. I'm doing a million things and so I'm always trying to You know, objectively analyze Uh, my relationship with all of these different things to make sure that they're that they're in balance They may not be balanced on a daily basis But over the course if you look, you know, sort of looking down over the course of a year or six months, everything balances Now, did you come right out with this quest this message of of change? Like on the podcast Was that what you started to kind of talk about right away? Like how you were able to overcome this addiction and um, or were you more like like Ultra marathoning like uh, based no, it was My podcast I've always wanted to cast like a really wide net and talk about a whole variety of things. It's not a it was never Intended or conceptualized to be a vegan podcast or a triathlon podcast or a running podcast. What happened was Um, we can get into it if you want But I did all these crazy ultra endurance events and I did quite well and a few of them And I'd done this one thing that no one had ever done before and it got a bunch of media attention And people were interested like this guy's 43 44 He's doing all this crazy stuff and he's doing it without eating any animal products. Like how does that work? So there was a bunch of stuff that got written up about me and that led to a book deal and I wrote this memoir fighting ultra that came out in 2012 Um, and and at the time it wasn't like as well known as I am now So after I did everything I could to push that book out I was like, well, what's next and I thought like well podcast could be cool and this was late 2012 podcasting wasn't new But it wasn't cool either, you know, it's like just now I'm kind of getting there were some Yeah, there were some good shows But but there wasn't a lot of depth like they they fell off a cliff pretty quick and I realized in the health space There was there was a couple interesting things there But but there wasn't a lot right and I'd love the medium because when I would go out and train I got in these six eight hour bike rides like you can't listen to music the whole time, right? And I would listen to audiobooks and I got interested in podcasts and I was like, this is really cool medium So I thought maybe there's something for me to explore there and I started mine without any I didn't have an agenda that it was going to be this big show. I didn't know if I would do episode two I didn't even know what it would be. I just turned a mic on and started talking and my first episode was with my wife We were living in Hawaii at the time and uh And it just has evolved very organically into what it is today But from the beginning I had this idea that I wanted to be able to have conversations That weren't just about the sport that I do or the way that I eat But how we can all be better in many different ways I mean, I guess that the probably the main theme of it is, you know, how can we live more? More integrated more authentically to who we really are, right? Do you find a therapeutic element to podcast? I know I do I know for me, you know, we were talking about that beforehand too You get to talk to these amazing people hold them hostage for however long, you know Ask all these questions and they have to answer it because it's getting recorded Uh, yeah, it's like, you know having this huge, uh board of advisors for your life Where you get to ask them everything you want to know and then share that like it's super powerful and it's intimate and like I'm sure you've experienced this where the people that you have on as guests become your friends and and that's just been an Extraordinary thing for me personally and it has helped me develop as a human being in like huge traumatic ways Let's talk about that some of the people that uh, do you have certain people that have really uh, altered how you Deal with things or that become friends like they come right to mind that you've thought of that you've interviewed Yeah, I mean part of that's like, how do you choose your babies? You know, and if people I'm sure ask you Who's your favorite kid? You know, you can't, that's really tough to do. Um I had so many different kinds of people like and I and I talk about addiction and recovery and I talk about diet and nutrition and fitness and training and and Mindfulness and all these so there's there's there's people that that cut across all of those categories. I think A lot of the meditation and mindfulness guests that I've had from Sharon Salisberg to my friend Uh, charlie Knowles. He's an amazing meditation teacher Like I'd always been somebody who kind of gave it lip service I'd kind of do it here or there but I was never really fully committed and wasn't Wasn't really sure I was completely sold on the promise that that everyone was talking about but I think because I had so many people on and and had so many interesting conversations about it that I was able to kind of take that Leap and commit to it in a way that maybe I wouldn't have otherwise and that's been super transformative I had gabor mate on who's an an expert in addiction and that like blew my mind because it turned into a personal like therapy session for me, you know Uh, which was incredible and I've had amazing athletes on me My most recent guest was Lance Armstrong and that was you know, that was an amazing experience. It was It was cool It was tricky, you know, he's an intense individual right going into that like, you know, you know, you're in for uh, You're gonna you're in for a ride and and as I said in the intro to that You know, I'm not I'm not there to judge him or to be judge and jury or anything And I'm not an investigative journalist I just wanted to have an intimate discussion with him and figure out like what makes this guy tick and how he's dealing with Certain things that the Irish human being doesn't have to deal with, you know How is he moving forward and all of that how often have you been challenged to break through on people? And have you had some guests who just like I just came through this guy Yeah, I mean, you know for me When I go into these interviews for me and this is just my own personal thing It's it's less about the information that the guest is is uh is sharing and more about me being able to connect with that person Emotionally, right and some people are ready to go there all the way and some people aren't and so it's about finding that edge in that line Um, but there's something about looking somebody in the eye, right? And and being present with them that allows for a little bit of magic to happen And so I go into it prepared But also open to allowing it to go wherever it wants to go and like you said like some people go places you never You're hoping they'll go, but you never thought that they would like I had Travis Barker on the podcast The drummer for blink Rockstar and and you know, I really wanted to talk to him about this plane crash that he survived that his friend DJ Adam A.m. Ultimately perished from And I wasn't sure if he wanted to talk about it, but we got into it and it became incredibly emotional You know for him to recount that and like for me For some for a guest to trust me in that way and to be able to share on that level for me Those are some of my favorite episodes very I can get to that level of honesty with people is rare And not everyone's willing to go there, but when you can get that like I think that's a beautiful thing I wanted to ask you, uh, you know if we could go back a little bit to the You know your initial stint with alcoholism You know the our attitude towards addiction is starting to change, which I think is a good thing We're starting to realize like you said that it's not really the substance. It's you know, what's behind that? It's the solution When you look back because it was a while ago now, can you identify what it was you were trying to distract yourself from? Yeah, that's an interesting question. It's a question I get a lot And of course I've put thought into that but I've also learned That spending a lot of time trying to figure out like why I'm an alcoholic is not necessarily the healthiest Pursuit or uh Or use of my time and energy like I know that I am and I know what the solution is So I can go down the rabbit hole of like, oh, you know This happened to me and that happened to me and and all of that Ultimately, it doesn't necessarily inform the solution in a fundamental way because I know what I need to do to stay Sober and to and to live as sober as possible But I think you know to speak to that I was just born I was born uncomfortable. You know, I always felt apart from my difficulty making friends as a kid. I was very isolated Um, I trouble making you know, I was like the kid who got picked last for kickball Like there was no indication that I was going to be an athlete Yeah, you and there was hell's had a safe story there I had the headgear, uh, or the doncha and I had an eye patch over my eye because I'm cross I like I was not a vision for you as a young kid I was gangly and uncoordinated and just super insecure and just walked around feeling like Everybody knew it was going on except for me, you know And swimming was the first thing that I kind of stumbled onto that I actually had like a natural inclination for and that became like my My kind of home like this safe place that I could go but you know, I was bullied in high school and all of that I had a lot of those experiences and grew up in a household where where there wasn't like Explicit pressure to perform, but it was a very education focused Upringing where there was a certain way that um, I was going to be and live and I felt pressure to like Live up to that in certain ways And so I think I was always a square peg trying to jam into a round hole and spent many years as a lawyer Trying to like be this person that I thought I was supposed to be And ignoring this other side of me that wanted to be something else because I didn't feel like that opportunity was available to me and I think that That dissonance like that that disconnect from really taking the time to look at myself honestly and say Well, what do I want to be? What do I want to do? Like I never asked myself those questions It was just study hard get the best grades, you know get into the best school that you can I got into like, you know, I got into every college I applied to I was like a kid who had a very young age I could overcome that awkwardness to achieve some level of academic and athletic success so that when I was a senior in high school I was getting recruited by all these colleges. I got into Harvard. I got into Princeton like I was being groomed to be this ultra successful person Um, but I never once asked myself like is this even what I want, you know And and uh, I just went along with it because that's climbing the ladder on the path In this American dream and you know the first You know the cracks in the veneer started when I got when I moved, you know I grew up in washington dc and I go 3 000 miles away to go to college and I'm away from home for the first time and I just go bananas on partying, you know because It was like an outlet. I didn't even know how uncomfortable I was in my own skin You know, and I was starting to discover that that that what made me feel okay Like I remember the first time I got drunk and it was like this warm blanket enveloped me for the first time and I was like This is how you're supposed to feel like I can take a breath like I can exhale like I feel comfortable for the first time I was like I want to do this all the time, you know, and it worked for me for a long time It allowed me to become a social animal and you know, I figured out how I could talk to a girl You know or crack a joke and do things that I never felt like I would ever be able to do So, you know, it's not just oh, it destroyed my life. Like it actually propelled things Yeah, exactly a lot of success from it for sure Yeah, yeah, so it works until it stops working, you know, and then like when it stops working everything goes to shit But you know, there was a good many years in there where, you know, I had a lot of fun with it Right. So how did how did the the bullying feeling isolated? How does that affect you now as an adult and your relationships with people now? I think I'm I think I think I have a huge reservoir of compassion and empathy for other people and I think I experienced that Most recently in my in my conversation with Lance, you know, everybody has an opinion of that guy and emotions run hot and You know, there's a lot of people that can't you know, all that kind of stuff and I just go into it like You know, my life was broken. There was a period of time where like my family wouldn't talk to me I was sleeping on a bare mattress in a shitty apartment with no furniture I was about to get fired from my law firm job. I had two DUIs. I was looking at jail time Like I lost all my friends. I'm hanging out with lower companions I'm going on multi-day benders where I don't even remember where where I am, you know my bank accounts overdrawn like It was not good at the end. It was pretty fucking dark and and the prospect of like Facing that and walking through it and rebuilding your life is difficult and I have a lot of empathy for that So I don't walk around in judgment of other people's experiences, you know, because I've I've gone through hard times And I've seen other people go through hard times and and I've done a lot of bullshit You know what I mean? And I don't want to be judged for that and you know My path forward is to own it and and to be transparent about it In hopes that that is helpful to other people that are struggling in the same way So I'm very empathetic to To people in general and and especially the guests that I have on the podcast Growth doesn't happen from being comfortable. I mean it comes from being uncomfortable Do you view feeling uncomfortable as a gift? Yeah, I have a huge capacity to tolerate being uncomfortable Obviously for better or worse You know what I mean? Like like when your life's going downhill like and and I'm still drinking and partying despite, you know My world collapsing on you know on top of that. I got this even though I'm suffering all that pain That's like I'm gonna keep going, you know, it's not painful enough yet. Let's make it more painful But you know, I learned that as a young person in my swimming career You know all throughout high school I'm getting up at 4 30 in the morning and going to some practice before school and then training another two hours after school And I was never the most gifted Swimmer athlete But I learned at an early age that I could overcome a big portion of that talent deficit gap by Overworking like working harder than the next person and I would put in these insane sets that like my coaches from that period Still talk about because people like just don't do some of the stuff that I was doing And and I was able to channel that into my workaholism and then into the ultra endurance world like I can tolerate pain Probably better than most all I know is my own experience, but there's something about About the ability to step into and weather discomfort that I think most of us are either scared of We run away from it. We can figure our lives to avoid it And in my experience and I think you would agree with me like the willingness to bring that into your life Not only Is the way forward and the way to grow but it's also it also makes you feel alive You know people are struggling with being happy and they think the answer to happiness is to create more luxury and ease in their life And the truth is quite the opposite. Well, this is why you see these Spartan races and stuff exploding right We're exploding right now because we're becoming so plugged in And so comfortable. Yeah and detached from ourselves so people want to feel that feeling of discomfort again Yeah, yeah It's great like when you think about it like if you're an alien who came down to earth and said Why are these people like sighing up for this stuff getting all muddy? It looks ridiculous because they're spending, you know 50 hours a week at a cubicle and their life is very predictable And there's something very primal about getting muddy and Mixing it up and doing all of these things that we have just divorced ourselves from in such a fundamental way Uh, and I think you know, it's beautiful to see these races exploding and people having these experiences of connecting with themselves in a physical way Where do you see us going in the future? Right in line with what you're talking about right now Like where do you see us going like as far as a society? Do you think we're going to get worse before we get better with being plugged in? Or do you think that you're going to see more of these events happening and people are going to start waking up? I think it's a bifurcation. You know, I think we're in We're in this super. I mean things are getting weird. You know what? I mean like culture's getting weird Um, we're in a race against time like we're either going to destroy our planet You know in the next 100 years or we're going to figure out a way forward And so I see like both of those things happen Happening simultaneously on the one hand, you know the environmental wreckage that we're creating is just insane And the blind eye that so many people are turning to it makes no sense Meanwhile, we have people who are innovating, you know new ways of feeding the planet as we move towards 10 billion people You know all these sort of lab grown meats and like new ways of eradicating factory farming so that we can feed I mean, it's like it's crazy what's going on and you have you know in in in parallel with things like um Obstacle course racing or triathlon or marathoning or any of these kind of healthy physical pursuits We have the development of virtual reality and ai and people You know with the ability to plug more and more into like not just these but you know devices that are even more addictive and and more All-encompassing so these things are budding up against each other And it's going to be interesting to see how it splits our society and which way we're going to go and I think that you know, it's It's it's coming fast. It's it's coming very very fast. You have kids, right? You said you have four of them Yeah, so how's that been? How's that been being apparent? How how much of a challenge has that been or what have you? Yeah, it's been interesting, you know, we've uh, we've done the best that that we can with navigating this But you know like these these devices these phones. This is part of the fabric of our lives and You know, I you know, we try to try to yeah, it's like this is the first generation of kids who are being reared on this from the very beginning Um And what is that going to look like? You know, so I'm not I can't tell my kids you can't use these things We try to police the hours around it and kind of Um, you know have healthy boundaries around when it's appropriate to use them and when it's not But also I think it's important for kids to be uh To be fluent in the language of what is happening because that's currency for you know, how how how You know, their professional lives are are going to unfold So it's not about not using it at the same time like we got rid of our television Maybe eight years ago. We don't have a tv. We haven't had a tv our little girls who are now 10 and 13 Have never watched television. I mean, but they're on youtube, you know, and and even if we had a tv They'd probably just be on youtube anyway, because that's they don't watch tv They're interested in that, you know what I mean? So watching that has been interesting. Um, have you heard of the book irresistible? No, how out of matler great read. Yeah. Yeah, and they talk about just I mean, we've only had Facebook and this and these phones enabled like this for 10 years So we're just now starting to see some of the research research and studies We have like back pain and children now coming up because their posture and stuff crazy Yeah, and and they're talking and here's the scary part and why I always recommend people anybody else kids I always say, you know, read that book. It's a great book is where where it's heading in the future is When you get somebody who has alcoholism addiction to drugs someone that you can see it on their body Like if I'm an outside person looking and you're grossly addicted to something I can see it on you and you look bad. I'm like, oh man. He's addicted to something bad, right? And people shame people like that But this has become something that it's a tool and it's like you can make a lot of money If you get good at using this tool and we celebrate it and it's all the next this is better This is faster and no one's really talking about the addictive properties that are happening to the point that I find it Extremely fascinating that the people that created these things don't let their kids really use them, right? Yeah, there was that guy Tristan I forget his last name. He was on sam harris's podcast waking up a little while ago who Uh, I can't remember whether he is an ex-googler or somebody he worked at a huge tech company And has really studied this and he's the one kind of the face of Of the silicon valley community who's coming out and saying let's take a real look at what's actually going on here and The vast extent to which these companies are investing millions of dollars in research into how to create the most highly addictive Time-consuming course application possible, right? And that's frightening, you know, it's frightening and as as somebody who you know Is an addict at my core like I catch myself all the time and I'm like, what am I doing? Right, I mean like I I'm I'm you know, I have to create rules for myself around Using these devices because I go down the rabbit hole as well and when you have small children You know, you can see it happening, you know, and it's it's frightening and so as a parent What is your responsibility or obligation towards managing that in in a developing mind? It reminds me a lot of the parallels Between you know the tech technology in our kids and When food started to become highly processed highly palatable It reminds me the same thing in the sense that you know, I grew up in the 80s and we were starting to understand You know that you probably shouldn't be eating a lot of stuff But it really isn't wasn't known like it is now and kids were we were when we were kids It was just fed to us no problem breakfast lunch dinner And it wasn't really police, you know, I'd come home from you know, trick or treating And it was my mom didn't tell me you can only have four pieces of candy I'd go in my room with my pillow sack I'd eat until I got sick and now Hotpockets left and right. Yeah exactly now parents kind of understand and I think The same thing is happening with technology with kids where parents don't realize really what's you know, how bad it is And so, you know, they're doing stuff in the house and the kids are quiet playing on the iPad And I'm like, what's the big deal? They're you know, they're occupying themselves Not realizing that they could be causing problems And I think what's going to happen is like what's happened with food is we're going to see A lot of problems come up and then people are going to start to become aware and start to say, oh wait Now we can identify it. Yeah now I need to limit my kids I need to police them and say you can only be on for an hour a week or you know, whatever So I see it being a completely new challenge But very similar to the ones that we've you know, we've been kept being going through with food Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what all this looks like in 20 years I think one of the one of the one of the kind of overarching rules that that I use or that we use Is distinguishing between passive use and active use in the sense that there's a distinction a fundamental distinction between Watching somebody else's creative output like watching a youtube video Versus like using minecraft minecraft or some other kind of application to build something where you're You're using your creative energy to actually if you're going to be on it At least be creating something as opposed to just absorbing somebody else's creative Do you actually have that conversation with the kids? That's a Yeah, yeah. I'm like I'm like less observing more creating. That's right You're gonna be on it like there has to be that there has to be a balance on the that's tipping towards the creative part As opposed to just absorbing somebody else my son just got into the stop motion camera And he does like lego like animation stuff with it now and it's like I do kind of want to encourage him Yeah, that's creative like that. Right. Yeah, make a video You know, even if it's just you know playing with filters on a on a on a photograph Whatever it is at least you're doing something as opposed to just scrolling through somebody's feed or like watching I'm gonna steal that. That's a good. Yeah, it's just being very distracted Does does the whole family eat a plant-based diet as well? Does your do your kids eat that way? Or is it a challenge? Yeah, I mean, it's been, you know, I started this 11 years ago So it's it's been a it's been a journey, you know, each kid has had their own different It's hard enough to get kids to eat Well now I mean we live in this bubble like not only are we in Los Angeles My two daughters now go to a school called Muse that was started by James Cameron's wife and her sister And they have a plant-based lunch at school. It's like, you know, it's like the only school in the country That serves like this organic plant-based lunch every day And my wife is an incredibly Talented cook so they prefer her food which made it easier And that's not to say that that, you know, when my 10 year old goes over to her friend's house Because you're a birthday party. I'm not going to be the dad who tells her she can't have pizza or cake like It's less about that than it is trying to instill in them Healthy habits around food and educating them whenever possible whether we're at the supermarket or In the preparation of the food we involve them in the cooking to use every every aspect of food as a homeschool opportunity to help them better understand their choices So that 10 20 years from now like that's what i'm interested in how they're going to be eating 20 years from now Not like did you have the cake at the birthday party? Right, right? You could also backfire right if you do it the wrong way like you're thinking you're doing it the right way but I I had friends who Their parents were extremely strict when it came to nutrition And the second they got out of the house, of course It was like every bell yeah game busters. You guys remember the kid, uh, the Hercules kid Do you remember him? Oh, yeah Do you remember that kid with a six-pack ass? He was like five years old and he was jacked His dad was like I mean they he was feeding them at all this crazy food training them every day I mean he was all over the news. This was probably 13 years ago 15 years ago It was a big deal And I actually just saw his photos resurfaced and they had a whole ride up on him And he's he wasn't way out of shape We have but he definitely was not in shape and just like I don't work out. I don't lift weights He got away he got away from it like Todd Morinovich, you know, I think I Yeah, we don't we don't create hardness around that kind of stuff Or judgment because that's what leads to the rebellion, you know The kid can't wait to leave to get out of the house and go to their friend's house so they can go crazy So we don't have a rule like we don't we this is like how we eat at home Um, but we don't create hardcore rules So that there's nothing to like if they come home and say I ate this and my friend Okay, you know like I don't get pissed, you know Because if I get if you create that hardness and strictness around it, then that's exactly what you get you get that rebellion What does your typical I guess day look like when it comes to your exercise routine? It depends on um, whether I'm preparing for an event or just in between events or like thing Yeah, I just did a crazy race in sweden in september, but that was the first event that I'd done Yeah, there's it's up there. I was that it right there. Yeah Swim run world championship. What is that a ball? Oh, wow, look at this. So this was a race It's a swim run event. It's called Uh otillo pronounced like uh to the in swedish Um, and swim run is uh is a sport that is finding its way to america, but no one here really has heard of it It's it's fairly large and growing in europe, especially northern europe and this race, uh The biggest race of the year is the swim run world championships, which takes place in the stockholm archipelago Um, it's about a two-hour ferry ride outside of stockholm. It looks like you do a bunch of uh island hopping Yeah, so what you do is over the course of a day you traverse 26 islands by by sea and foot Uh, and you do so there's 52 transitions between swimming and running And you do the whole thing say 52 52 you do the whole thing In a wetsuit a modified wetsuit and and your running shoes you're you're swimming swimming with your running shoes on And you can bring anything you want for the swim you just have to carry it with you So most people wear these hand paddles, right that you then carry when you're running and you do it in tandem with a teammate So not as a relay, but you have to you do it together as a duo And you have to stay 10 meters within distance of your teammate the entire time. That's cool There was 150 teams that that did it this past year Uh, I think 25 teams um dnf'd uh didn't didn't finish And we were the fastest american team. We finished middle of the pack I didn't have the greatest day to be honest with you, but it was an amazing adventure It has to be one of your favorite. I mean that's so it was crazy. I mean there The conditions that day were insane too. We woke up in the morning like on this little island And it was sideways rain and the wind was crazy and the white caps on the on the sea were just bananas So it was like the thing the thing was the heart the swimming was fine for me I actually enjoyed it the water was cold, but it wasn't as cold as it Had been in past years. It could amount a lot colder. I think it was like 56 or 55 or something like that um, but The running wasn't really running. It's like it was like it was like doing a spartan It was like obstacle course racing like probably rocky The the the waves would crash on these granite slabs and you can see like on the bottom lower left corner You're like climbing up. You're trying to climb these slabs. It's super slippery. I was falling down I wore the wrong kind of shoes like they weren't grippy enough and I was falling down all over the place And then you're traipsing through these bogs with the mud like up to your knees and Climbing under like fallen trees and stuff like it was wild Wow What was it what in all the runs you've done what was been the most Amazing moment for you like as far as an accomplishment or excited finish or one like um a couple things I mean there was one moment in this race I mean this was a 75 kilometer race about 40 miles of running and six miles of swimming It's like took us like 10 and a half hours to do about halfway through the race. There's the hardest swim It's about 1.2 kilometers not the longest but the most difficult because it was the most exposed part of water of the channel of the whole race And the swells were like up to six feet. I mean it was crazy, you know the boats that were out there were pitching I was like you're like surfing your way in I was like There is no way that this race could take place in the United States like no insurance company This is the most dangerous. Yeah, like nobody should be out here right now And but I just started which makes it more awesome. I was like laughing I was like, what am I even doing here? You know, like this is crazy that that I'm even here But it was like it made me really reflect on this journey that I've been on You know like from being in rehab and all these obstacles that I've overcome to like get to do the things That I get to do today. I was like, I just had this like Swell of gratitude like I was just laughing. I was like, I can't even but like What brought me to this place that I'm like in the Baltic Sea like getting you know in this washing machine You know right now swimming this thing. So that was definitely a highlight I uh in 2009 the race that I've specialized in over the years is called ultra man It's a double iron man distance Triathlon if one iron man is too easy. Yeah 320 miles it's a three-day stage race that circumnavigates the big on of why And in 2009 it's broken into three days the first day You swim 6.2 miles and ride your bike 90 miles the second day you ride your bike 170 miles in the third day It's a 52 mile run A double marathon and in 2009 I won stage one by 10 minutes So and I was like 43 years old at the time So that was definitely a highlight of the of my that had to feel pretty badass Especially it was pretty cool. Yes 43 This lawyer like I wasn't even like two years before that I was 50 pounds overweight sitting on the couch So that was pretty dramatic moment for me. Wow awesome I ended up crashing my bike on the second day which took me out of like podium condition but I was just kind of lucky to finish that race but Um and then in 2010 I did this thing called epic five where a buddy and I did Five iron man's on five wine islands in under a week. So that was like finishing that was definitely something cool How do you recover after something like that? I mean that race was I shouldn't even call it a race because it wasn't a race. I mean epic five was really just an adventure And in that it was all about sleep deprivation and managing efficiency because it didn't matter how fast We did those iron man's every day But the longer you're out there doing it the less sleep you get and the less recovery So it's finding that balance of exertion versus versus versus rest And you know trying to finish the iron man In time to make the last flight off the island to get to the next island like we were getting very little sleep So I actually wasn't that sore earning like that or just I just needed to sleep for a week and then I was fine Do you have a favorite tools like if you use float tank cryo? Are you use these tools like I've just started doing cryo because there's a place near here that that opened up not too long ago We just got a clear light sauna and I'm starting to experiment with cold plunging and sauna But that's relatively new. I mean for me recovery is is I mean the number one recovery tool sleep and sleep is like Super priority to me. I get eight hours of sleep, you know every night. And that's that's my number one no matter what Uh, and then beyond that eating, you know as much Anti-inflammatory foods is possible at the right times throughout the day post workout. That's super important to me I don't have like norma tech boots and all the high fancy stuff But I you know foam rolling things like that are super important to me. I have that hyper ice foam roller that like Vibrating one which I've enjoyed. Yeah, so I do more and more stuff with that and you know compression gear here in there I love that you said sleep because We always talk people always ask us questions about all these crazy tools Yeah, and I'm and 90 percent of the clients that I've ever trained don't even sleep, right? They're on their screens all the way till they go to all the bed and and their sleep sweet sleep quality is terrible But yet they want to know, you know, what tool should I be using? Do you have a system in place to make sure you get that good sleep or I mean look, you know I'm a I'm a dad of four kids You know, I don't always get my way and our nephew lives here Also, we have other people that are living here, you know periodically like there's a lot of moving parts here My wife is very busy doing lots of other things as well So, you know, I don't live in a hermetically sealed, you know You know tank or live in a cabin in the woods by myself So, um, you know, I always have to balance like what I would do for performance versus What's in the best interest of my kids and the family? So if it was up to me, I'm in bed at nine o'clock every night And up at five or six, uh, I don't always get to do that But when I can, you know, I do do that, but I think to your point, um Yeah, everybody wants look sleeps not sexy like the basics aren't sexy You know, what's sexy is being able to buy this thing that cost four or five hundred bucks that everybody thinks is going to make the difference and You know Those things are just in my in my experience and in my opinion um A lot of people are Are afraid of the work and and they spend a lot of time focusing on gear, you know And they they spend a lot of time like analyze it. Well Yeah, I'll run when I get like well, I need the right watch like should I get this watch to get that watch? What kind of shoes do you wear? It's like it doesn't matter, man You don't need any of this stuff like what there's just these are just barriers in between you and doing that are induced by fear That's so true. Yeah, so true. You talked about anti-inflammatory foods. What are some of your favorites? Uh, a lot of turmeric, uh in my morning smoothies lots of actual turmeric. Yeah, turmeric root I'm a big fan of of smoothies and my Vitamix. You got a favorite recipe to get rid of that nasty taste or I don't yeah, I don't well like I like the nasty taste now like my smoothies taste terrible Yeah, so it's I don't have one specific recipe But they always start with dark leafy greens like kale and spinach and the like pre-workout beets and beetroot, you know endurance booster for sure Um, uh, lots of berries blackberries very high, you know anti-oxidants turmeric, of course, so post workouts more about the antioxidants Cheese seeds flax seeds ground flax seeds hemp seeds things like that spirulina chlorella Lossy greens big on the greens Very cool. Yeah, they make they make a big difference when I uh, it's funny. We interviewed. Um, who was it? Dr. Terry walls And uh, she's a great story Fantastic story. Yeah, that was a that was a cool story just because she was one of our Early on get started eating vegetables like crazy after that interview I'm not eating enough made a big difference. It made a very very big difference to dramatically increase my intake of Vegetables because I thought I was eating a lot of vegetables But she's talking about eating, you know, three to six Large large cup. Yeah, right the vegetables when I started doing that I noticed just tremendous benefits and just everything from like you said inflammation to Recovery even strength, you know, I even noticed, uh, you know, my lifts would would do better because I was eating more of these things So, um, I it's it's it's interesting when you go through and you start to study nutrition and you get really deep into it Although there are wide variances between individuals there are some general truths and one of which is Probably for most people eating most mostly plants is probably the best thing For most people and it seems that way true for for everybody, you know Yeah, I mean I think I mean look you're preaching to the choir on that one But I think, you know, if you if you canvass, you know, the blue zones where people are living the longest And have the less the least incidents of these chronic lifestyle illnesses that are killing millions of us unnecessarily They're not necessarily 100 plant based but they eat very little meat and their diet is, you know, comprised of a preponderance of vegetables and fruits and and you know nuts and seeds on On that note, what do you think about the when you look at like what's happening? I don't know how much you look at this but like the bodybuilding world that's talking Two grams three grams of protein per pound of body weight. Do you see that? Do you even pay attention to that? I'm not super up to speed on the bodybuilding world. Uh, I have friends that are vegan bodybuilders for what it's worth Uh, I have opinions on the protein intake question. I mean, you know, I think that we're in a protein obsessed culture Yes, we are. Uh, and that's we talk about that all the time I mean, it's being fueled by crazy marketing interests that that want you to believe that you need massive amounts of protein Not to become necessarily a bodybuilder, but just to breathe air, you know what I mean? Like if you're not Eating protein bars throughout the day and drinking a protein smoothie immediately upon waking up in the morning That you're not going to be able to function. You know my experience personally is very different from that I think that uh, most people look Nobody's suffering from a protein deficiency Most people are eating two or three times more protein than the recommended daily allowance and they're not active like you guys Uh, to the extent that you want to build muscle like a bodybuilder You know, you guys would know more than I about what the protein requirements of that kind of athlete are But I eat let I probably I eat so little protein in comparison to like what everyone tells me I should And the truth is is that we're under this belief that the only way to get protein or the only protein that matters is protein that comes from from from animals and You know when we're talking about protein what we're talking about is amino acids the building blocks of protein When you eat protein you break it down into those amino acids anyway Uh, and specifically the nine amino acids that our bodies can't synthesize on their own We have to get them from the foods that we eat And these these amino acids are abundance in a wide variety of plants, right? So you're getting them just lower on the food chain and you know We could go down the rabbit hole and how those are assimilated and all of that But you know, I've been doing this for 11 years and I've been able to go out and kill it in my specialty in my specific discipline and I've never You know had any issue building lean muscle mass or recovering And I'm 51 now, you know, and I can still go out and I just did this race as a you know as a 50 year old so um You know, I think that we need to reframe and rethink This obsession with protein and I think really it's one thing for me like the skinny runner guy to talk about it But it's you know, it's guys like you, you know, who are in the gym who are doing You know big heavy lifts and are in as part of that community to try to help translate, you know, or or at least Parse truth from thick. I think that was what was so unique about our message We blow people away when we talk about protein and say things like, you know We're talking to people who want to build point mass, right? And we'll tell them, you know, it's probably a good idea to have low protein days To have days where you don't eat very much protein at all and studies will actually show and this is from a performance standpoint that uh, you can actually Desensitize your your body becomes desensitized the protein So when you do a protein fast and reintroduce protein, it becomes you become more efficient with how you utilize it You don't need nearly as much But we do talk about this on the show all the time We actually called it about three years ago where Somebody had asked us a question where we thought what's the next trend going to be in fitness And I had said, uh, I think we're going to see a blowback and we haven't seen yet But I think we will and I know this is going to happen because I go into the grocery store and there's protein water and protein cereal for kids It's like the magic macro nutrient like nothing you can't do any wrong with protein It's been we don't fortified and that's not true. And in fact hide, you know, dr. Mercola we interviewed him once and he he said his in one opinion He has is that uh, the overconsumption of protein He thinks maybe worse than the overconsumption of process carbohydrates And I find that very very fascinating, but you know, it's our tendency to overdo things and We'll see well, we want to you know, we're reductionist, right? We want to look at the one thing whether it's the gps watch or what's the one antioxidant food the tumor It's all about the turmeric or the normatech boots or the cryotherapy It's like it's not any one of these things and we need to broaden our aperture and understand that it is the Highly complex mind boggling complex interplay of everything that we're doing that translates into the result that you seek Excellent. What is your uh, I get what is your dream now moving forward? I'll have you already got already living your dream. I've lived in my dream. Yeah Listen, you know, the guy gets to talk to brilliant minds. He's running these races all over the world Like I'm in what else for you? I'm in the bonus round. You know what I mean? Like I should be dead, you know, like I so I'm not always mindful of that I get grouchy and resentful and competitive and you know, all that kind of stuff But the truth is is I am I am living my dream right now and I and I want for nothing Um, of course, I have aspirations, you know, I I just want to be able to continue to do the work that I do and try to impact As many people as as profoundly as I can and whether that's through a podcast or the books that I write Or the public talks or the other kind of endeavors that I'm involved in It doesn't really matter what matters is maintaining the integrity of that message so that I can be helpful What are current goals? Are you working on another book? Are you getting ready for another race? It's more important. Like where are your goals at right now? Yeah, so I I just turned in a revised edition of finding ultra It's been like five and a half years since that book came out So I rewrote the whole book and that's coming out either in april or june. I'm not sure My wife and I wrote a cookbook that's coming out in april That's uh called the plant power way italia italian plant-based cookbook and I'm working on a new book I'm not quite ready to talk about but it will essentially be Kind of a mind body spirit primer For wellness leveraging not just my experience but the experience of all the people that I've had on the podcast So I'm looking forward to that and in terms of athletic endeavors. I'm looking at the next thing I'm not sure what it's what it's looking like yet I have one idea that I'm working on that. I'm not ready to say out loud yet, but It'll be something but hopefully Yeah, it was cool. You know, like I like I said, like I hadn't raced in five years Until I did this atilla race this spring and I and I realized in doing that like and the reason that I hadn't was I really needed to figure out how to support my family without having to go back to being a lawyer and make it work And so I was very invested in like trying to create structure around the various things that I do In a sustainable way so that I could continue to do them and it took many years to figure that out And then turning 50. I felt like doing something physical was relevant again Because 50 is like what can a 50 year old body do and I realized in the experience of doing that race like this is You know a big part of who I am and I don't want to go five years again without racing Like I want to make a part of my life in a more fundamental way, but it's You know, it's it's you know, as you guys know like I think people don't realize how how much work it takes to Put on a podcast, you know when you want to do it, right? Like it's a lot, right? People think you just record and it's done, you know, it's like that's the easy that's the easy part, right? So there's a lot that goes into it and I'm juggling a lot of different stuff And I want to be a present dad and all those good things So it doesn't leave the amount of time for training that I would like to compete at the level that I think I'm capable of And so for me the journey has been about being okay with that I could probably be faster, but like can I just show up knowing I'm not at 100% I'm at maybe 80% and and being cool with that. Well, excellent Listen, oh no, go ahead. Oh, I was gonna say do you handle all of your podcasting stuff? Or do other people help you out with that? I've got a guy who edits the show for me who's great. He lives in phoenix, so we work remotely And I have a couple guys that work part-time on me and like kind of just Assisting capacity and do some web stuff and graphic stuff for me. So yeah, I have help I'm not doing it totally alone, but but I'm also a bit of a control freak too So I probably need to distance myself and step back So, uh, yeah, well, I'm glad that we we finally met man And I uh, you've got such a great message. You have a great message. You have a great story I think uh, we need more people that are sharing good information and interviewing the type of people that you do Look forward when the book comes out and anything that we can do to help push it out and do stuff, man We're here for sure. Thanks. Yeah, it's very cool to finally meet you because we see you all the time You know, we're we're Right What is my pump I never heard of these guys How do they suddenly let's take them out Yeah, all right. Uh, no, I love what you guys are doing. It's cool And and you guys have a you have a very distinct voice and a fresh voice And I love the format and uh, hope you guys keep doing it. Check this out. Yeah, consider consider You know me a resource and I don't much appreciate your success. Thanks for coming on the show Awesome, man. Thank you for having me. Excellent. So, uh, check out mind pump tv on youtube We post a new video every single day Thank you for listening to mind pump if your goal is to build and shape your body Dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance Check out our discounted rgb super bundle at mind pump media dot com The rgb super bundle includes maps anabolic Maps performance and maps aesthetic nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by sal adam and justin To systematically transform the way your body looks feels and performs With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos the rgb super bundle is like having sal adam and justin As your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price The rgb super bundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee And you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mind pump media dot com If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on itunes And by introducing mind pump to your friends and family We thank you for your support and until next time this is mind pump