Latest / INSPIRE STORY / #018_ Lessons Learned _ Empathy Earned_ The Story Behind The Story

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#018_ Lessons Learned _ Empathy Earned_ The Story Behind The Story · INSPIRE STORY

0:01
Speaker 1: The veneers of denial were starting to fall away, and
0:04
Speaker 1: I was starting to get a picture of the truth
0:06
Speaker 1: of how I was living. What I thought was cool
0:10
Speaker 1: ultimately turned out to be something very dark. But ultimately,
0:15
Speaker 1: you know, I reach that point that you hear with
0:17
Speaker 1: other people in recovery, that point of no return where
0:20
Speaker 1: you wake up and you finally have the willingness to
0:22
Speaker 1: do whatever it takes. And that's when I ended up
0:24
Speaker 1: in a rehab in Oregon. The challenge of crashing and
0:28
Speaker 1: having to pick yourself back up is really what reveals character,
0:33
Speaker 1: Like that's the test if my journey's been about anything,
0:36
Speaker 1: It's about kind of trusting those whispers and being willing
0:40
Speaker 1: to have faith and invest in those little signals that
0:44
Speaker 1: are just so faint and yet potentially life altering and meaningful,
0:49
Speaker 1: you know. And everything good in my life has come
0:53
Speaker 1: as an outgrowth of putting service first and recovery first,
0:57
Speaker 1: and just allowing whatever.
0:59
Speaker 2: Else is going to come.
1:01
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right, you heard it correctly. That is indeed
1:04
Speaker 1: me Rich role, And this is the Rich Role podcast.
1:19
Speaker 3: The Rich Role Podcast.
1:23
Speaker 1: So I'm going to do something a little bit different today.
1:27
Speaker 1: Either I'm getting mushy with age or perhaps I'm evolving
1:31
Speaker 1: a bit. I choose to believe it's the latter, But
1:34
Speaker 1: either way, I've been feeling a great deal of gratitude
1:38
Speaker 1: as of late. All of you guys, the audience has
1:42
Speaker 1: a great deal to do with this emotion, and I
1:44
Speaker 1: just wanted to publicly acknowledge it and take a moment
1:47
Speaker 1: to reflect on the journey that got me to this place,
1:52
Speaker 1: because I think it's important to stop for a beat
1:55
Speaker 1: to honor yourself and more than that, those that help
1:59
Speaker 1: get you where you are. For those relatively new to
2:02
Speaker 1: the show who might not know that much about my
2:04
Speaker 1: personal story, about thirteen years ago, I was somebody who
2:08
Speaker 1: I would characterize as relatively disconnected from my higher self,
2:13
Speaker 1: and although I had strung together some years sober, after
2:17
Speaker 1: many years lost in the throes of alcohol, I found
2:20
Speaker 1: myself stuck in a career that didn't serve me. I
2:23
Speaker 1: was unhealthy, I was overweight, and essentially totally blind to
2:29
Speaker 1: the best path forward. Ultimately, I found this way out.
2:34
Speaker 1: It was a journey that began with diet and nutrition
2:36
Speaker 1: and fitness that took me places I never thought possible,
2:39
Speaker 1: conquering ultra endurance challenges previously unimaginable and ultimately reinventing my
2:46
Speaker 1: life wholesale along the way. And then about eight years ago,
2:50
Speaker 1: I published a memoir chronicling that journey, called Finding Ultra,
2:54
Speaker 1: and that book changed a lot for me and for
2:56
Speaker 1: other people. And I've continued to grow and evolve, misstep
3:00
Speaker 1: and fail and learn since that moment. And look, I'm
3:04
Speaker 1: not unaware that today I have this amazing privilege of
3:08
Speaker 1: living this life that is basically well beyond my wildest imagination.
3:15
Speaker 1: But I will also freely admit that I often lose
3:17
Speaker 1: sight of this fact daily, at times focused on finishing
3:21
Speaker 1: up the next project or lost in thought about the
3:23
Speaker 1: work that remains, the stones that are unturned, the past
3:27
Speaker 1: mistakes that are unrectified. And I need to be reminded
3:31
Speaker 1: all the time that it's important to take off those blinders,
3:34
Speaker 1: to stop for a moment, to reflect back, to honor
3:36
Speaker 1: the path you've blazed, and express gratitude for those in
3:40
Speaker 1: your life that support you, because nobody, nobody achieves dreams alone.
3:45
Speaker 1: When Outside magazine reached out to me a couple months
3:48
Speaker 1: ago saying that they wanted to put me on the
3:50
Speaker 1: cover of their January issue, I honestly thought that I
3:54
Speaker 1: misheard them.
3:55
Speaker 2: Unlike so many of.
3:57
Speaker 1: My heroes who have graced the cover of this iconic
4:01
Speaker 1: publication over the years, I didn't see myself anywhere near
4:05
Speaker 1: that category. I'm not an Olympic champion. I'm not a
4:08
Speaker 1: world class adventurer. I've never even.
4:10
Speaker 2: Won a big race.
4:12
Speaker 1: My books never made the New York Times bestseller list,
4:15
Speaker 1: and my podcast, which I love and which is phenomenal,
4:18
Speaker 1: is hardly the largest. But this has been a really
4:22
Speaker 1: proud moment for me. It's an honor that I receive
4:25
Speaker 1: with gratitude and a whopping dose of humility. And alongside
4:29
Speaker 1: that honor was this opportunity to be a guest on
4:32
Speaker 1: The Outside podcast, which kind of served as part of
4:36
Speaker 1: the interview that was conducted by Peter Vigneron, who wrote
4:39
Speaker 1: the article in the publication, and a conversation that was
4:42
Speaker 1: in turn beautifully produced and written and edited by Michael
4:46
Speaker 1: Roberts with music by Robbie Carver. Over the years, I've
4:51
Speaker 1: guested on a ton of great shows.
4:53
Speaker 2: I've been on Joe Rogan.
4:54
Speaker 1: Twice, Impact Theory, Good Life Project, School of Greatness, Gary Ve,
4:58
Speaker 1: Adam Carolla, James Altacher, and many many other great shows,
5:01
Speaker 1: which I will link in the show notes, but I've
5:04
Speaker 1: never repurposed any of those experiences on this feed. But
5:08
Speaker 1: this conversation really stands out to me. I think it
5:11
Speaker 1: captures the best of how I explain and think about
5:16
Speaker 1: this wild journey that I've been on, and perhaps even
5:19
Speaker 1: more importantly, what can be gleaned from it for the
5:21
Speaker 1: benefit of others.
5:22
Speaker 2: So I'm doing what.
5:23
Speaker 1: I've never done before, and I'm resharing that conversation with
5:27
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Speaker 1: to get twenty percent off. Okay, So, as I mentioned,
10:24
Speaker 1: this episode in so many ways marks a milestone in
10:28
Speaker 1: my life that I will always look back on somewhat astounded,
10:32
Speaker 1: very proud, and perpetually humbled. If you're stuck in a
10:37
Speaker 1: version of my past and can't see your way forward,
10:41
Speaker 1: My hope is that this conversation will help spark something
10:45
Speaker 1: in you, inspire you to perhaps think differently and more
10:48
Speaker 1: openly about possibility, and ultimately embolden you to embark upon
10:54
Speaker 1: your version of what I've been blessed to experience, to
10:57
Speaker 1: do the inside work, to see yourself and all your
11:00
Speaker 1: beauty and character defects more objectively, so you can set
11:05
Speaker 1: a better trajectory to face and ultimately overcome those shortcomings.
11:09
Speaker 1: I hope it will open you to the experience of
11:12
Speaker 1: courage that occurs when you walk through fear and help
11:15
Speaker 1: you breathe just a little bit.
11:17
Speaker 2: More life into the more.
11:18
Speaker 1: Self actualized, authentic self within. If you enjoy what is
11:24
Speaker 1: momentarily to follow, you can find the Outside podcast and
11:27
Speaker 1: all the usual podcast places and at Outside online, dot
11:30
Speaker 1: com Forward Slash podcast. I want to thank Michael Peter
11:34
Speaker 1: and everyone at Outside for helping share my story, including
11:38
Speaker 1: Bo Greeley for his cover image and wonderful photography. It
11:42
Speaker 1: all means more to me than you guys can possibly imagine,
11:45
Speaker 1: So without further ado, please enjoy.
11:51
Speaker 3: Just relax.
11:54
Speaker 4: That is the big idea behind Outside Magazine's current issue,
11:58
Speaker 4: and to be honest to kind of improve your Health
12:01
Speaker 4: message we tend to deliver every January, just like a
12:04
Speaker 4: lot of other media outlets. At the start of the
12:07
Speaker 4: new year, people are looking for guidance on how to
12:09
Speaker 4: meet their lofty resolutions, and we're happy to deliver. Hey,
12:14
Speaker 4: we need it too. But what many past January issues
12:17
Speaker 4: have focused on fitness and athletic performance. This year, we
12:21
Speaker 4: really wanted to help our readers chill out. The goal
12:24
Speaker 4: was to provide remedies for the frenetic, angst written state
12:27
Speaker 4: of being that we all seem to be experiencing these days.
12:31
Speaker 4: It seems that everyone is constantly overworked. We're also bombarded
12:35
Speaker 4: by terrifying news about the climate, We're pickled in angry politics,
12:40
Speaker 4: and we respond by rebooting our nutrition, ramping up our workouts,
12:44
Speaker 4: and hacking our time to supercharge our productivity. It's all
12:48
Speaker 4: exhausting and it's not helping. With that in mind, we
12:53
Speaker 4: wanted to create an issue offering alternative strategies to point
12:56
Speaker 4: in the opposite direction, away from all the striving and
13:00
Speaker 4: towards relaxing. From the moment we settled on this plan,
13:05
Speaker 4: we knew we wanted to put on the cover rich role.
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Speaker 4: The massively popular podcast host and vegan athlete who is
13:12
Speaker 4: an icon for radical life transformation. Here's someone who has
13:16
Speaker 4: faced addiction, who boldly abandoned his career as a lawyer
13:20
Speaker 4: to chase his passion for endurance sports, found a purpose
13:24
Speaker 4: in his recovery. On his weekly show, Role interviews everyone
13:28
Speaker 4: from elite athletes to spiritual leaders to best selling authors
13:32
Speaker 4: only interest of humbly empowering the rest of us to
13:35
Speaker 4: make better decisions. The entrepreneur and life coach Jesse Itzler
13:39
Speaker 4: aptly said that Role is like the endurance athlete version
13:43
Speaker 4: of Oprah, And so we sent frequent outside contributor Peter
13:47
Speaker 4: Wigner on to southern California to spend some time with Roll.
13:51
Speaker 4: He started by attending a live edition of the Rich
13:54
Speaker 4: Role podcast held in LA's Wiltshire Ebel Theater, where Role
13:58
Speaker 4: interviewed the environmentalist o' hawk. Most memorable moment of that
14:02
Speaker 4: evening that actually came in rules introduction, when he thrilled
14:06
Speaker 4: a plan in speech and instead read an email he'd
14:09
Speaker 4: gotten from one of his listeners.
14:12
Speaker 1: And I thought that it would be good to read
14:15
Speaker 1: this one because the person who sent it to me
14:17
Speaker 1: happens to be here this evening so bear with me.
14:23
Speaker 2: This is from Ron.
14:26
Speaker 1: Ron writes, Hi, Rich, I'm headed to La tomorrow to
14:30
Speaker 1: join you for the live podcast event and very excited
14:33
Speaker 1: for the experience. We met at the Conscious Capitalism CEO
14:36
Speaker 1: summit coming on two years ago. We had lunch with
14:39
Speaker 1: a small group and I shared with you afterwards that
14:43
Speaker 1: my sixteen year old son was in treatment for drug
14:46
Speaker 1: and alcohol addiction. You said the greatest thing to me,
14:50
Speaker 1: and that was Wow, what I would have been able
14:53
Speaker 1: to have done with my life if I learned the
14:56
Speaker 1: recovery skills at sixteen versus forty It was actually thirty one,
15:01
Speaker 1: but and that comment gave me hope. I also started
15:05
Speaker 1: listening to your podcast on a regular basis, and it
15:07
Speaker 1: has been part of my journey to be a better father,
15:09
Speaker 1: husband and leader. I get to share that through my
15:12
Speaker 1: involvement as the founder and board chair of Conscious Capitalism
15:16
Speaker 1: Kansas City.
15:17
Speaker 5: So thank you.
15:18
Speaker 1: Jumping back to this week, my son that I mentioned
15:21
Speaker 1: will be in the audience with me. He is now eighteen.
15:26
Speaker 1: He's been accepted to LMU in Los Angeles for fall
15:28
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty. He is at LMU this week taking
15:33
Speaker 1: part in the dedication of their new Lions for Recovery
15:37
Speaker 1: Center in the student union and speaking on a panel
15:40
Speaker 1: sharing his.
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Speaker 5: Story right, and this is the part that got me.
15:52
Speaker 1: So you were right, and I learned that recovery gives
15:56
Speaker 1: expansion and not contraction. Recovery gives expansion and not contraction.
16:04
Speaker 1: I appreciate you for being a light and inspiration to
16:06
Speaker 1: us to live better lies and create a better world
16:08
Speaker 1: with gratitude. Ron Ron Hill, are you here? Can you
16:12
Speaker 1: stand up and wave? And your son Alec. I can't
16:16
Speaker 1: see the crowd, but.
16:19
Speaker 2: There you are, beautiful.
16:20
Speaker 4: Two days after that event, Big Norol went to Rolls
16:23
Speaker 4: Home in the Santa Monica Mountains, where he lives with
16:25
Speaker 4: his wife, the vegan cookbook author Julie Piott, and the
16:29
Speaker 4: youngest two of their four children. They sat down and
16:32
Speaker 4: Rolls Home recording studio to talk about his long journey.
16:36
Speaker 4: He'd grown up in a suburb of Washington, d C.
16:38
Speaker 4: Where he attended an all boys prep school. He was
16:41
Speaker 4: extremely hard working, a strong student, and a top swimmer.
16:45
Speaker 4: He wasn't the kind of kid who got into trouble.
16:48
Speaker 4: That changed, though, when he started getting recruited by college
16:51
Speaker 4: swim teams.
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Speaker 1: Part of the whole recruiting trip. Thing is you party, right,
16:57
Speaker 1: and like, I really been a part in my life, but.
17:00
Speaker 2: Here I am.
17:03
Speaker 1: Going to house parties and going to bars and all
17:04
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff, and that was really kind of
17:06
Speaker 1: my first real introduction to alcohol. And there's a there
17:11
Speaker 1: was this one time I was recruited to the University
17:14
Speaker 1: of Michigan. The coach at the time is John R. Banchuk,
17:18
Speaker 1: still my favorite coach. He's like the most amazing swim
17:20
Speaker 1: coach in the world. And Michigan was very much on
17:23
Speaker 1: the rise.
17:24
Speaker 2: And I have.
17:26
Speaker 1: A personal family connection to the University of Michigan. My
17:30
Speaker 1: mom went to the University of Michigan and my dad
17:31
Speaker 1: went to law school at the University of Michigan. Everybody
17:34
Speaker 1: in my family and extended family is from Michigan. They
17:37
Speaker 1: all bleed Mason Blue. And my grandfather, who died before
17:40
Speaker 1: I was born, was captain of the University of Michigan
17:43
Speaker 1: swim team. I believe in nineteen twenty eight, I'm not mistaken,
17:48
Speaker 1: he held an American record in the one hundred and
17:50
Speaker 1: fifty meter backstroke or yard backstroke, which is not an
17:54
Speaker 1: event anymore, but it was at the time an Olympic hopeful.
17:57
Speaker 1: He barely missed a birth for the you know, he
18:00
Speaker 1: was like a peer of Johnny Weissmiller in that era
18:02
Speaker 1: of swimming. So this is the legacy with which I
18:05
Speaker 1: go on this recruiting trip to the University of Michigan.
18:09
Speaker 2: And there was.
18:11
Speaker 1: A duel meet that weekend which I was able to watch,
18:15
Speaker 1: and then following that there was a house party. So
18:18
Speaker 1: I'm at this house party with all the swimmers and
18:21
Speaker 1: there's a keg and it's a good time, you know, happening.
18:25
Speaker 1: And I remember, you know, being given like a big
18:32
Speaker 1: gulp thing of beer to drink and drinking it. I've
18:35
Speaker 1: got this buzz on. And one of the divers, Bruce Kimball.
18:43
Speaker 2: Who was was the.
18:47
Speaker 1: Second most famous diver in the world at that time
18:49
Speaker 1: behind Greg Luganis, whose father was the diving coach at
18:53
Speaker 1: the University of Michigan, Dick Kimball, legendary diving coach. Bruce
18:57
Speaker 1: also liked to party, and he pulled off in front
19:00
Speaker 1: of me the greatest.
19:02
Speaker 2: Party trick I have ever seen today, which.
19:04
Speaker 1: Is he was holding a cup of beer, keg beer,
19:09
Speaker 1: and from from from being flat footed, he jumped in
19:14
Speaker 1: the air and did a backflip holding this cup of
19:16
Speaker 1: beer and landed and did not spill one drop of
19:20
Speaker 1: this beer.
19:21
Speaker 2: And I just my mind was blown. I could not
19:23
Speaker 2: believe it.
19:24
Speaker 1: And I just thought, whatever that guy has I want it,
19:28
Speaker 1: and I was all in.
19:29
Speaker 2: I was like, if that guy can.
19:30
Speaker 1: Party like that and do what he's done, it is
19:32
Speaker 1: like I was like, I want to be a part
19:34
Speaker 1: of this community, and like it was almost like this
19:37
Speaker 1: permission to drink in a way that I felt prior
19:42
Speaker 1: to that was like not okay. Suddenly it felt like
19:45
Speaker 1: it was okay, Like this is what yeah, Like, look
19:48
Speaker 1: at this guy and what he's done with his life.
19:50
Speaker 2: Now, for those that don't know, fast forward to.
19:54
Speaker 1: What happened in the not too distant future of Bruce Kimball,
19:59
Speaker 1: which was that he he was drunk and he plowed
20:04
Speaker 1: into I believe I don't want to get this wrong.
20:06
Speaker 1: I may have this a little bit wrong, but I
20:08
Speaker 1: believe he plowed into a group of people drunk driving,
20:12
Speaker 1: killed somebody, went to prison. You know, he basically, you know,
20:18
Speaker 1: was an alcoholic who suffered very dire consequences as a
20:21
Speaker 1: result of being an alcoholic. So what I thought was
20:24
Speaker 1: cool ultimately turned out to be something very dark and
20:30
Speaker 1: I had to experience my own version of that later on.
20:34
Speaker 4: But Rich didn't go to Michigan. He Joe Stanford, which
20:37
Speaker 4: was another powerhouse for swimmers. It was a big change
20:40
Speaker 4: for a kid from the East Coast, and Rich made
20:42
Speaker 4: the swim team as a walker.
20:45
Speaker 1: I arrived on that campus and just fell in love
20:47
Speaker 1: with everything about it. It was so different from growing
20:50
Speaker 1: up in Washington, and there was an openness to it,
20:53
Speaker 1: and it seemed like everybody that I met had something
20:56
Speaker 1: unique and cool about them. Like it was just such
20:58
Speaker 1: an incredibly dynamic and ortive environment and I thrived in it,
21:03
Speaker 1: you know, I felt like I could be myself. I
21:06
Speaker 1: was doing well academically, and I showed up ready to go,
21:12
Speaker 1: like I showed up in shape for something, because I realized, like,
21:14
Speaker 1: I'm walking onto this team and I'm going to be
21:17
Speaker 1: training with Pablo Morales and John Moffatt and Jeff cost Off.
21:21
Speaker 1: I mean, these were the absolute legends of the time. Like,
21:25
Speaker 1: and if I expect to be of any value to
21:28
Speaker 1: this team, I've got to earn my spot and I
21:31
Speaker 1: can't mess around. So my first meet, it was against Texas.
21:34
Speaker 1: We were number one, they were number two and I
21:38
Speaker 1: almost won the two hundred butterfly and like my very
21:40
Speaker 1: first duel meet against Billy Stapleton, who would kind of
21:44
Speaker 1: famously go on to be Lance Armstrong's agent.
21:46
Speaker 3: It was.
21:47
Speaker 1: It was a very it was a very positive, auspicious
21:50
Speaker 1: start for this young walk on freshman who, by the way,
21:54
Speaker 1: had suffered a crack rib like the week before, because
21:57
Speaker 1: I was drunk at a football game, you know, so
22:00
Speaker 1: the cracks and the you know, it's like you could
22:02
Speaker 1: kind of it was a foreshadowing of what would soon,
22:05
Speaker 1: you know, come to pass.
22:08
Speaker 4: By the spring of his freshman year, rich was drinking
22:10
Speaker 4: four or five nights a week, but he didn't think
22:13
Speaker 4: he had a problem. This was college and he felt
22:16
Speaker 4: like he was just having fun. Still, he did start
22:19
Speaker 4: to notice that when everyone else would be headed home,
22:21
Speaker 4: he was the guy staying out. For a time, he says,
22:25
Speaker 4: the drinking eroded his ambition and his self confidence. His
22:28
Speaker 4: swimming career peaked when he was a freshman. He got
22:31
Speaker 4: slower than next year, and in the spring of his
22:33
Speaker 4: junior year he quit the team. After that, rich as
22:37
Speaker 4: he wandered pretty much aimlessly for a long time. He
22:41
Speaker 4: graduated Stanford and he went to law school, mostly because
22:44
Speaker 4: he didn't know what else to do. He even got engaged,
22:48
Speaker 4: but the marriage ended during the honeymoon, a huge sign
22:50
Speaker 4: that something was very wrong with his life. Around the
22:54
Speaker 4: same time, he had moved to Los Angeles to work
22:56
Speaker 4: for an entertainment law firm and proceeded to get arrested
23:00
Speaker 4: twice in two months for drunk driving. Second time proved
23:03
Speaker 4: to be an important.
23:06
Speaker 1: So the second DUI that I got got pulled over,
23:11
Speaker 1: it was like two or three in the morning, driving
23:13
Speaker 1: the wrong way down a one way street in Beverly Hills,
23:17
Speaker 1: get pulled over. Blood alcohol tested zero point twenty seven.
23:21
Speaker 2: I think.
23:23
Speaker 1: Arresting officer confiscates my wallet, like sees my business card
23:29
Speaker 1: and my wallet realizes that he knows my boss.
23:34
Speaker 2: Calls my boss, who was.
23:37
Speaker 1: A prominent litigator in Los Angeles who had done a
23:39
Speaker 1: lot of work for the LAPD in the Beverly Hills
23:42
Speaker 1: Police Department over the years, says, I picked up one
23:45
Speaker 1: of your boys. So Monday morning, you know, I go
23:47
Speaker 1: to jail for the night. But I get out of
23:50
Speaker 1: jail and I'm just going to show up at work
23:51
Speaker 1: pretend like nothing happened, you know, even though.
23:55
Speaker 2: My license has been suspended. This is two DUIs in
23:58
Speaker 2: a row.
23:58
Speaker 1: Like I'm living in a land, you know, because basically
24:01
Speaker 1: I'm going to jail and I'm pretending like everything's fine.
24:06
Speaker 1: Boss calls me in. He says, I got an interesting
24:09
Speaker 1: phone call over the weekend. Like I don't want to
24:11
Speaker 1: get involved in your personal life, but like sounds like
24:14
Speaker 1: you know, your shit's upside down, dude, Like, and I
24:17
Speaker 1: can't have that. We were preparing for a trial at
24:19
Speaker 1: the time where I was going to second chair this trial.
24:21
Speaker 1: It was very intense work period.
24:23
Speaker 2: So he's like, I need you to call this lawyer.
24:26
Speaker 1: This is going to be your guy, uh, and you know,
24:31
Speaker 1: just solve it, like I don't want to hear about it.
24:33
Speaker 2: Of course, this lawyer was extremely expensive.
24:36
Speaker 1: He's like, you know, high powered, you know, uh, criminal
24:40
Speaker 1: lawyer in Los Angeles. His name was Charlie, and Charlie
24:45
Speaker 1: just gave it to me straight. He's like, you're drunk.
24:47
Speaker 1: You're going to jail.
24:48
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not.
24:49
Speaker 1: I'm not a miracle worker here, Like you know, look
24:52
Speaker 1: at this on paper, like this is what you're giving
24:54
Speaker 1: me to work with, Like you're going to go to jail, dude,
24:57
Speaker 1: and that really scared.
24:58
Speaker 2: Me, you know, really really scared me.
25:00
Speaker 1: Because it was like the veneers of denial were starting
25:04
Speaker 1: to you know, fall away, and I was starting to
25:07
Speaker 1: get a picture of the truth of how.
25:10
Speaker 2: I was living.
25:12
Speaker 1: And then this really remarkable thing happened, which is the file,
25:24
Speaker 1: the court file for my first EUI got lost and
25:29
Speaker 1: I was never prosecuted for that, So that just disappeared
25:32
Speaker 1: and went away out of the blue. Charlie's like, you
25:35
Speaker 1: don't understand. I've been practicing law for forty years. I've
25:37
Speaker 1: never seen that happen once. So I go to court
25:41
Speaker 1: for the second one and I get probation and basically,
25:47
Speaker 1: you know, my license is stripped. You know, I've got
25:49
Speaker 1: there's things I have to do, and I've got to
25:51
Speaker 1: go to you know, AA and get court car something
25:53
Speaker 1: and all that.
25:53
Speaker 2: But like I didn't have to go to jail. It
25:56
Speaker 2: was this gift that should never have happened.
26:02
Speaker 1: And that's when I realized, like, you know, I'm being
26:05
Speaker 1: looked out for, like something else is going on, because
26:08
Speaker 1: that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Now, that doesn't mean
26:12
Speaker 1: that I was struck sober. I never drank again, Like
26:14
Speaker 1: I had a very inelegant, you know, non linear relationship
26:19
Speaker 1: with recovery for a period of months after that. But ultimately,
26:23
Speaker 1: you know, I reached that point that you hear with
26:25
Speaker 1: other people in recovery, that that point of no return
26:28
Speaker 1: where you wake up and you finally have the willingness
26:30
Speaker 1: to do whatever it takes. And and that's when I
26:34
Speaker 1: ended up in a rehab in Oregon.
26:38
Speaker 4: Role was thirty one years old when he went to rehab.
26:41
Speaker 4: Initially he expected to stay at the center for just
26:43
Speaker 4: a couple of weeks. That's not what happened.
26:47
Speaker 1: And when I got there, I just realized that, like
26:50
Speaker 1: when the fog.
26:51
Speaker 2: Started to clear, I just realized.
26:52
Speaker 1: The gravity of my situation and how how horribly wrong
26:56
Speaker 1: you know, I had I had gone, and I never
26:59
Speaker 1: wanted to be in this place again. And I really
27:03
Speaker 1: developed the willingness to just do whatever it was going
27:05
Speaker 1: to take to create a foundation of sobriety so that
27:08
Speaker 1: I could, you know, basically reinvent myself.
27:13
Speaker 2: When I started telling the truth and being honest.
27:15
Speaker 1: About how I was actually living, they were like, you
27:19
Speaker 1: have a case of alcoholism. We typically only see in
27:22
Speaker 1: lifelong drinkers, like sixty five year old dudes and you know,
27:25
Speaker 1: if you don't figure this out, like you you're going
27:28
Speaker 1: to die.
27:28
Speaker 5: You know.
27:28
Speaker 2: It's like, this is not a joke.
27:30
Speaker 1: And we think, we know you want to get back
27:33
Speaker 1: into the world and blah blah blah, but you know,
27:35
Speaker 1: and it's your choice, but we really think you should
27:37
Speaker 1: stay longer. And I just said I'll stay as long
27:40
Speaker 1: as you think I should, And I ended up staying
27:42
Speaker 1: one hundred days.
27:44
Speaker 4: Role describes as early years of recovery like a mission
27:47
Speaker 4: to fix everything he had broken while he'd been drinking.
27:50
Speaker 4: Went about this with a lot of intensity, but he
27:52
Speaker 4: also ignored other key aspects of a healthy and fulfilling life.
27:57
Speaker 2: And when I got sober, my goal.
28:00
Speaker 1: Was to repair all the records that I created as
28:04
Speaker 1: a result of my drinking and using.
28:05
Speaker 2: Like I had been.
28:06
Speaker 1: The fall from grace was so precipitous, Like I had
28:09
Speaker 1: been this person with all this potential and I squandered it,
28:12
Speaker 1: and there was so much shame about that. And I
28:14
Speaker 1: was like, I really was intent upon becoming a productive
28:18
Speaker 1: member of society, you know, somebody who who could earn
28:22
Speaker 1: another person's respect and who could show up on time
28:24
Speaker 1: and like do all this stuff. And that involved repairing
28:27
Speaker 1: the relationship with my family and with friends and all
28:30
Speaker 1: of that, and you know, I was very dedicated to that,
28:33
Speaker 1: and I was successful in that. So between thirty one
28:37
Speaker 1: and thirty nine, I had bridged that gap and you know,
28:41
Speaker 1: successful as a lawyer, you know, in good with my
28:45
Speaker 1: friends and family again, and kind of had gotten all
28:50
Speaker 1: this stuff, like I was driving a sports car and like,
28:53
Speaker 1: you know, building this house and it just.
28:55
Speaker 2: All looked really groovy.
28:59
Speaker 1: But what I, what I, what I hadn't done was
29:03
Speaker 1: enough of the inside work to come to terms with
29:06
Speaker 1: the fact that I was chasing somebody else's life. Even
29:10
Speaker 1: though in rehab I was introduced to these spiritual principles
29:14
Speaker 1: about how to live, and I had and I had
29:16
Speaker 1: grabbed onto those and had made progress, Like I had
29:19
Speaker 1: figured out a way to no longer use drugs and
29:22
Speaker 1: alcohol and to kind of expand my horizons on the
29:26
Speaker 1: possibilities for my life.
29:28
Speaker 2: I was still very much.
29:30
Speaker 1: You know, in the in the amateur leagues of understanding
29:35
Speaker 1: how to apply those principles to my life in a
29:37
Speaker 1: in a in a fundamental and tactile way. And I
29:40
Speaker 1: was pursuing this career out of ego and fear and
29:44
Speaker 1: insecurity not because it was my passion for what I
29:49
Speaker 1: wanted my life to look like.
29:51
Speaker 2: And so.
29:53
Speaker 1: What happened was the pain of that experience caught up
29:58
Speaker 1: to me in the same way that pain of my
30:00
Speaker 1: drinking and using ultimately did. And it culminated in this
30:06
Speaker 1: evening shortly before my fortieth birthday, when I was walking
30:12
Speaker 1: up a simple flight of stairs after a long day
30:15
Speaker 1: of work and had tightness in my chest and was
30:17
Speaker 1: out of breath, like I couldn't walk up a simple
30:19
Speaker 1: flight of stairs without taking a break. And that realization,
30:24
Speaker 1: like that was another breaking of the denial because I
30:28
Speaker 1: still thought of myself on the Stanford Swimmer, but I
30:31
Speaker 1: was carrying around fifty pounds extra around.
30:34
Speaker 2: The mid section.
30:35
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't really look in the you know,
30:36
Speaker 1: if I was honest with myself, I was so far
30:39
Speaker 1: away from that human being because during that eight nine
30:43
Speaker 1: year period, I was like a workaholic, Like I wasn't
30:47
Speaker 1: I was eating, you know, it was just a junk
30:48
Speaker 1: food junkie and takeout food in the law firm and
30:51
Speaker 1: not exercising and just working this seventy eighty hour weeks
30:54
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff in pursuit of this
30:56
Speaker 1: other person's life. And so the existential crisis kind of
31:00
Speaker 1: collided with this realization about my poor health, and that
31:03
Speaker 1: was the perfect brew, like the you know, these this
31:07
Speaker 1: collision of ingredients that created this second moment of reckoning.
31:11
Speaker 1: And I think because I had experienced that by by
31:17
Speaker 1: going to rehab and realizing how much my life had
31:19
Speaker 1: changed by making one simple decision, I had enough self
31:22
Speaker 1: awareness to realize, you know, on that staircase, that I
31:26
Speaker 1: was being revisited by a very similar opportunity and that
31:29
Speaker 1: if I grabbed onto it, perhaps I could make another,
31:33
Speaker 1: you know, big change, like this is another bottom, but
31:35
Speaker 1: it's also another opportunity. And and I did that, and
31:39
Speaker 1: that's really kind of what's set in motion everything that's followed.
31:46
Speaker 4: The first big change role me, and after a second
31:48
Speaker 4: moment of reckoning, was to overhaul his diet, with the
31:51
Speaker 4: enthusiastic support of his wife, Julie Piot we'd married just
31:55
Speaker 4: a couple of years. In his recovery, he became a vegan.
31:59
Speaker 4: He also began exercizing again, swimming and running. It wasn't
32:03
Speaker 4: anything crazy, at least not at first, but he was
32:06
Speaker 4: reclaiming his fitness quickly and feeling good soon he was
32:10
Speaker 4: running five or six miles at a time, and then
32:13
Speaker 4: very unexpectedly, what was supposed to be another routine run,
32:17
Speaker 4: he just kept going.
32:19
Speaker 1: On these trails and I was just going to run
32:22
Speaker 1: for forty five minutes or an hour, and I just
32:24
Speaker 1: had one of those moments that every runner is familiar with,
32:27
Speaker 1: where you kind of drop into this flow state and
32:29
Speaker 1: you feel bulletproof and like you can run forever, and
32:33
Speaker 1: you know, each mile you feel stronger than the one before.
32:36
Speaker 1: And I'd never experienced that before and just decided to
32:40
Speaker 1: go with it and ultimately ended up running like twenty
32:43
Speaker 1: four miles and you know, four hours im out of
32:45
Speaker 1: the trail.
32:45
Speaker 3: It's like the.
32:46
Speaker 1: Craziest thing, like the last thing that I thought would happen.
32:50
Speaker 1: And another you know kind of moment of you know,
32:56
Speaker 1: realizing that maybe my life could look differently, like either
33:00
Speaker 1: these lifestyle changes I've made are more profound than I
33:05
Speaker 1: anticipated or and or like I've unlocked this potential or
33:11
Speaker 1: this gene that was dormant or that I didn't even
33:14
Speaker 1: know that I had. And and you know, if my
33:17
Speaker 1: journey's been about anything, it's about kind of trusting those
33:20
Speaker 1: whispers and being willing to have faith and invest in
33:24
Speaker 1: those little signals that are just so faint and yet
33:28
Speaker 1: potentially life altering and meaningful.
33:33
Speaker 4: The whispers in this case were clearly telling him to
33:36
Speaker 4: start training harder and with more focus, which he did.
33:39
Speaker 4: He also signed up for his first triathlon. It didn't
33:43
Speaker 4: go so well. He started throwing up during the swim
33:46
Speaker 4: and he wasn't able to finish, and yet he enjoyed it.
33:49
Speaker 4: So we hired a coach and he began hunting around
33:52
Speaker 4: for another event to enter. He wanted something really, really hard.
33:57
Speaker 4: What he found was Ultraman is essentially a double length
34:01
Speaker 4: ironman around the Big Island of Hawaii.
34:04
Speaker 1: This race that very few people know about, that had
34:07
Speaker 1: been around for a very long time and was really
34:10
Speaker 1: more of a spiritual odyssey than an athletic event. Every year,
34:16
Speaker 1: Jane Bacchus, the director of this race, would hand pick
34:20
Speaker 1: thirty five people from all over the world to participate,
34:23
Speaker 1: not necessarily the best athletes, but people she felt like
34:26
Speaker 1: could benefit the most from having this kind of experience.
34:29
Speaker 2: It's a self supported race.
34:31
Speaker 1: You bring your own crew. Over this three day period,
34:33
Speaker 1: you circumnavigate this entire island. It's a race and it's
34:36
Speaker 1: a world championship, and there are athletes that are vying
34:38
Speaker 1: for that title, but ultimately the greater goal is that
34:42
Speaker 1: every single person, athlete and crew member be transformed as
34:46
Speaker 1: a result of going on this collective three day caravan.
34:50
Speaker 2: And that really.
34:50
Speaker 1: Connected with me, and I was like, that's what I'm
34:52
Speaker 1: looking for, Like that is the experience that I'm missing
34:55
Speaker 1: in my life, and I want to feel like what
34:58
Speaker 1: it would feel like to bark upon something so difficult,
35:02
Speaker 1: Like it bent my mind that people could actually do
35:05
Speaker 1: this double iron man thing was insane. But once I
35:08
Speaker 1: got comfortable with that, it was like, this is not
35:12
Speaker 1: about a race. This is about like broadening your perspective
35:16
Speaker 1: on who you are and connecting with yourself in a
35:18
Speaker 1: really profound way.
35:20
Speaker 4: Before he could compete, Role had to get accepted into
35:23
Speaker 4: the event. His only credential was not finishing a much
35:27
Speaker 4: shorter triathlon. But he called the Ultraman race director anyway,
35:30
Speaker 4: and he told her his story. She didn't say no, Well,
35:34
Speaker 4: she didn't say yes either. She said maybe, which was
35:37
Speaker 4: all the encouragement Role needed. So he had a coach,
35:40
Speaker 4: a training plan, and a goal. His biggest challenge Role
35:44
Speaker 4: was still a lawyer.
35:46
Speaker 1: I'm working, trying to make a living, I'm training for
35:49
Speaker 1: this race, and this is look. Now, the idea of
35:51
Speaker 1: like the digital nomad is so widely accepted, but this
35:55
Speaker 1: was a period of time where the Internet was still
35:57
Speaker 1: pretty new, like using it for much else other than
36:00
Speaker 1: email was not really like that functional. So the notion
36:04
Speaker 1: that like this lawyer is going to have to like
36:06
Speaker 1: pull over off his bike and like handle a conference
36:08
Speaker 1: call like in the middle of the day, you know,
36:11
Speaker 1: thinking like everybody's in suits and their office is like
36:14
Speaker 1: if they could see me now, And I'm trying to
36:15
Speaker 1: play it off like I'm in an like there was
36:17
Speaker 1: a it was a shell game for a while. I
36:19
Speaker 1: was living this double life, like I was pursuing this
36:22
Speaker 1: one area, but also trying to hold myself out as
36:24
Speaker 1: this like person who's in the office all day long,
36:27
Speaker 1: have all my stuff in my truck, and you know
36:30
Speaker 1: I would I would just go wash myself off in
36:32
Speaker 1: gas station bathrooms and you know, have changes of clothes
36:35
Speaker 1: and have all my training gear with me. So I
36:38
Speaker 1: literally was like camping sort of all the time.
36:43
Speaker 4: Role was eventually accepted into the two thousand and eight
36:46
Speaker 4: Ultraman and he stunned everyone at the event, including himself,
36:50
Speaker 4: by finishing in eleventh place overall, the third among Americans.
36:54
Speaker 4: Convince he could do even better. He's signed up again
36:57
Speaker 4: in two thousand and nine, but while out on a
36:59
Speaker 4: training rat on his bike and the southern California hills
37:01
Speaker 4: that spring, he crashed badly, smashing his head and face
37:05
Speaker 4: so hard that even today he can't feel his lower lip.
37:09
Speaker 4: He's stelling his scars on his face. Roll doesn't remember
37:12
Speaker 4: much from the accident, but he does recall being in
37:15
Speaker 4: the emergency room with his wife and wondering if he
37:17
Speaker 4: should quit.
37:20
Speaker 1: That really made me question, you know, the wisdom and
37:24
Speaker 1: what I was doing, Like I've got kids, Like I'm
37:26
Speaker 1: a lawyer, Like what are you doing?
37:28
Speaker 3: Man?
37:28
Speaker 2: You know, like crack your head wide open, like for
37:30
Speaker 2: what you know?
37:31
Speaker 1: And you know, it was a it was a it
37:36
Speaker 1: was a moment in which I really had to get
37:38
Speaker 1: clear on truly what it was that I wanted to do.
37:40
Speaker 1: And Julie said to me as I was laying in
37:42
Speaker 1: that bed, like if this was it and it was
37:44
Speaker 1: all done, like would you do it again?
37:46
Speaker 5: Is this?
37:47
Speaker 2: Do you regret it? Like, you know, what do you
37:48
Speaker 2: want your life? To be and I was like, I know,
37:51
Speaker 2: this is what I want to do. She's like, good,
37:52
Speaker 2: then do it.
37:54
Speaker 1: It wasn't that I had answered all the questions that
37:56
Speaker 1: I had for myself, but I felt like my compass
37:59
Speaker 1: was being calibrated somehow. Not in the sense that this
38:03
Speaker 1: was going to be a vocation, but there was something
38:06
Speaker 1: about what I was trying to do and what I
38:09
Speaker 1: was pursuing that just felt in alignment, Like I felt like,
38:12
Speaker 1: this is the direction I need to go in and
38:14
Speaker 1: I have. I can't see past two weeks from now
38:17
Speaker 1: in terms of where this is going to lead me.
38:19
Speaker 1: I just feel convicted that the answers that I seek
38:24
Speaker 1: are going to be discovered and revealed by continuing to
38:28
Speaker 1: pull on this thread rather than reverting back to what
38:31
Speaker 1: I know.
38:33
Speaker 4: In his next ultraman role, finished the first day leading
38:36
Speaker 4: the field by ten minutes. Then on day two he
38:39
Speaker 4: crashed his bike again and he lost any chance that
38:42
Speaker 4: a podium finished. He struggled on through a lot of
38:45
Speaker 4: pain and he ended up finishing sixth, beating his time
38:48
Speaker 4: from the year before by two hours.
38:51
Speaker 1: And that was incredible because the challenge of crashing and
38:55
Speaker 1: having to pick yourself back up is really what reveals.
39:00
Speaker 2: Charter, Like that's the test.
39:02
Speaker 1: Executing a race at the highest level and having everything
39:04
Speaker 1: go your way isn't exactly the learning experience that I
39:07
Speaker 1: was looking for that I needed. Like to me, it
39:10
Speaker 1: was a perfect race because I had crash and I
39:12
Speaker 1: was like, I didn't want to finish the race, and
39:14
Speaker 1: my ego was shattered and all of that. I still
39:16
Speaker 1: had to pick it up and finish it, and like
39:18
Speaker 1: I learned more about myself as a result of that
39:20
Speaker 1: than I ever could if everything had gone my way.
39:22
Speaker 1: So you know, I love everything about how that ended up,
39:26
Speaker 1: but it still left me thinking, like I have capacities
39:29
Speaker 1: that I didn't realize that I had.
39:31
Speaker 4: Pushing the limits of those capacities led rolled a partner
39:34
Speaker 4: with endurance athlete Jason Lester to take on something the
39:37
Speaker 4: two of them dubbed the Epic five have them doing
39:41
Speaker 4: five iron Man's on five Hawaiian islands and under a week.
39:45
Speaker 4: There was another inspiring life changing experience. Meanwhile, though real
39:50
Speaker 4: life matters, things like the responsibilities of earning money and
39:54
Speaker 4: taking care of your home and your family, they were
39:56
Speaker 4: becoming increasingly difficult to manage. At the same time, the
40:00
Speaker 4: only reason role was able to do what he says
40:02
Speaker 4: was because of the strength and dedication of his wife.
40:05
Speaker 4: Even during later years when they were on the verge
40:07
Speaker 4: of losing everything, Julie's faith and what they were doing
40:11
Speaker 4: never faltered.
40:14
Speaker 2: We went through an extended dark night of the soul.
40:18
Speaker 2: Julie calls it our dismantling.
40:22
Speaker 1: You know. We went through many years of not being
40:24
Speaker 1: able to pay a mortgage. We had our trash bands
40:26
Speaker 1: taken away because I couldn't pay the sixty bucks or
40:28
Speaker 1: eighty bucks or whatever. It was just putting food on
40:31
Speaker 1: the table was a struggle. We had cars repossessed that like,
40:35
Speaker 1: it was really challenging and really humiliating.
40:39
Speaker 2: And there were.
40:39
Speaker 1: Plenty of times where I thought I was insane. How
40:44
Speaker 1: could I you know, like I was this person who
40:46
Speaker 1: was in this place and now I've gone through all
40:49
Speaker 1: of this and now here I am, and this is
40:50
Speaker 1: what we're dealing with, Like I must really be insane
40:55
Speaker 1: or what is fundamentally wrong with me? And Julie would
40:57
Speaker 1: be like, no, everything is the way it's supposed to be,
41:02
Speaker 1: and we are burning in the fires because we're being
41:05
Speaker 1: prepared for something else. And I was like, you're insane.
41:08
Speaker 1: You know, I'm very rational, and she has shown me
41:12
Speaker 1: time and time again the limits of that operating system
41:16
Speaker 1: and the expansiveness that can be experienced when you let
41:19
Speaker 1: go of that and allow yourself to live more in
41:24
Speaker 1: integrity with your inspiration and your intuition, which is a
41:28
Speaker 1: very difficult, delicate, ephemeral thing to do, but I really
41:34
Speaker 1: do have to, like I would not be doing any
41:36
Speaker 1: of these things if left to my own devices, And
41:39
Speaker 1: it was really her strength that gave me the permission
41:43
Speaker 1: to continue to move in this direction.
41:47
Speaker 4: From alcoholic to workaholic to plant powered endurance hero who's
41:51
Speaker 4: willing to risk it all to pursue an enlightened path.
41:54
Speaker 4: Sounds like the making of a hell of a book,
41:57
Speaker 4: which it was Role published Finding Ultra in this Bring
42:00
Speaker 4: of twenty twelve. The thing is, though the book wasn't
42:04
Speaker 4: actually his idea and came from another former swimmer at
42:07
Speaker 4: Stanford who was early in his own addiction recovery when
42:10
Speaker 4: he read a short blurb about Role in the alumni magazine.
42:13
Speaker 4: He reached out to Role because he was looking for
42:15
Speaker 4: people to talk to, people who would understand him. They
42:19
Speaker 4: had regular conversations for months until at one point, the
42:22
Speaker 4: guy says, Hey, your story's amazing. You should write a
42:25
Speaker 4: book as it happened. This person also knew the agent
42:29
Speaker 4: of Dean Karnaziz, the superstar ultrarunner, whose book about his
42:33
Speaker 4: transformation that had been a breakout hit. Sounds like another
42:37
Speaker 4: lucky moment in the saga of rich Role, But as
42:40
Speaker 4: he sees it, it's also a result of his enduring commitment
42:43
Speaker 4: to addiction recovery.
42:45
Speaker 1: And I look at it as a function of putting
42:51
Speaker 1: sobriety first, you know, like, my only goal was to
42:56
Speaker 1: be of service to this person who was newly sober,
43:00
Speaker 1: and everything good in my life has come as an
43:03
Speaker 1: outgrowth of putting service first and recovery first, and just letting,
43:09
Speaker 1: like sort of allowing whatever else is going to come come.
43:12
Speaker 4: Rule also credits recovery for teaching him how to understand
43:16
Speaker 4: and tell his own story and to listen and interpret
43:19
Speaker 4: other people's stories. These are valuable skills when you're writing
43:22
Speaker 4: a memoir or when you go on to create a podcast.
43:26
Speaker 2: What you learn in.
43:29
Speaker 1: The secret society rooms of recovery that we're not allowed
43:32
Speaker 1: to talk about, you develop a huge capacity for empathy,
43:38
Speaker 1: and you learn how to be vulnerable. You learn how
43:41
Speaker 1: to tell the truth, and you learn to listen, and
43:44
Speaker 1: you get practiced in telling your story. You sit and
43:48
Speaker 1: you listen to other people share their story, and you
43:52
Speaker 1: learn from their courage and their vulnerability and their emotional journey.
43:56
Speaker 1: And then it's your turn.
43:57
Speaker 2: To go do that.
43:58
Speaker 1: And over the years, you get and the story starts
44:01
Speaker 1: to teach you what's important about it and what is
44:04
Speaker 1: impactful and helpful to other people. So I learned how
44:08
Speaker 1: to share my story in those rooms. I learned to
44:11
Speaker 1: be vulnerable. I learned to be comfortable expressing my truth
44:17
Speaker 1: and my emotions and my weaknesses and failures and the like.
44:20
Speaker 2: All of that.
44:21
Speaker 1: Comes from recovery. And I think it's interesting that a
44:28
Speaker 1: lot of successful podcast hosts are in recovery. That's not
44:33
Speaker 1: a mistake, because you learn, you learn the craft of storytelling,
44:38
Speaker 1: and you learn how to emotionally connect with other people.
44:41
Speaker 1: And I think that's how I learned how to get
44:44
Speaker 1: up in front of people on stage, and how I
44:47
Speaker 1: learned to be a good host and learn how to
44:49
Speaker 1: be a good listener when I have guests.
44:53
Speaker 4: On the day Finding Ultra came out role ceremoniously, did
44:57
Speaker 4: not renew his bar membership. It was done a lawyer
45:01
Speaker 4: and all in on this new life and pursuing his passion.
45:04
Speaker 4: It wasn't as glorious as you might think.
45:07
Speaker 1: Hence ushered in a very long, extended period of time
45:10
Speaker 1: in which the phone did not rank, which ushered in
45:17
Speaker 1: financial hardship for many years, a lot of uncertainty about
45:21
Speaker 1: what life would look like and doubt. And it made
45:25
Speaker 1: me think, I'm just full of shit. Like I just
45:28
Speaker 1: wrote this book and I talk about all these spiritual
45:30
Speaker 1: principles and how you have to like do the inside
45:33
Speaker 1: work and trust your heart and follow that and all
45:36
Speaker 1: of that, and I'm like, you are so full of shit, man,
45:39
Speaker 1: look at your life. It's a disaster right now. You're
45:41
Speaker 1: not an example for anything. We were on the precipice
45:44
Speaker 1: of losing our house, like you know, the material world
45:48
Speaker 1: was kind of collapsing on top of me. And there's
45:51
Speaker 1: this narrative out in the world or on the internet,
45:54
Speaker 1: like oh, Rich writes this book and starts this thing
45:56
Speaker 1: and it's all gravy, and like, oh, it's a New
45:58
Speaker 1: York Times bestseller, not a New.
46:00
Speaker 2: York Times bestseller.
46:01
Speaker 1: It did okay, and it found a little audience but
46:04
Speaker 1: it wasn't like this book that then just captured the
46:07
Speaker 1: fascination of the world, you know, It wasn't like that
46:09
Speaker 1: at all.
46:10
Speaker 4: Role was thrown a lifeline by a wealthy friend who
46:13
Speaker 4: invited him and his family to stay on a property
46:16
Speaker 4: he owned in Hawaii, where he was establishing an organic farm.
46:20
Speaker 4: The friend asked Role to help him develop some community
46:23
Speaker 4: pieces for the project. They lived in urates. It was
46:26
Speaker 4: an adventure of sorts, but one that soon gave Roll
46:29
Speaker 4: a case of island fever. In the wake of the book,
46:32
Speaker 4: he was eager to figure out his next thing and
46:35
Speaker 4: hungry for another creative outlet. During his long hours of
46:38
Speaker 4: endurance training, Roll had listened to hours upon hours of
46:42
Speaker 4: podcasts and fall in love with the medium. Now he thought,
46:46
Speaker 4: maybe I could do something.
46:48
Speaker 1: And when I looked at the health space, there was
46:51
Speaker 1: some interesting stuff, but I didn't feel like I felt
46:53
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of opportunity there because there just
46:57
Speaker 1: wasn't that much, you know. And we were in Kauhi,
47:02
Speaker 1: we were with my sons who had all this musical
47:03
Speaker 1: equipment and microphones. I spent a day going online trying
47:06
Speaker 1: to figure out how you start a podcast, and once
47:09
Speaker 1: I saw that just turned a microphone on and my
47:12
Speaker 1: wife and I started talking and that was it, you know,
47:14
Speaker 1: and it was fun.
47:16
Speaker 2: I thought, let's do that again tomorrow.
47:19
Speaker 4: From the outset, we all knew what kind of show
47:22
Speaker 4: we wanted to create. It would be one focused on
47:24
Speaker 4: his guests, not himself. Also, he didn't want to host
47:28
Speaker 4: a podcast. It was only for athletes.
47:30
Speaker 1: It was very clear from episode one, like this is
47:34
Speaker 1: not going to be about me, and it's not going
47:35
Speaker 1: to be about triathlon. It's like, this is not going
47:38
Speaker 1: to be a training podcast. Like I've grown to a
47:41
Speaker 1: certain point and there's so much growth to be had,
47:44
Speaker 1: Like I want to continue to grow, and I want
47:46
Speaker 1: to bring on people who can help do that, that
47:49
Speaker 1: I can do that with, who can teach me? And
47:52
Speaker 1: who are those people? And how can I create what
47:55
Speaker 1: I would have liked to have discovered ten fifteen years early,
48:00
Speaker 1: or when I was trying to figure out who I
48:01
Speaker 1: wanted to be and I felt like I couldn't be
48:04
Speaker 1: anything other than what other people's expectations for me were.
48:09
Speaker 1: What if I could create a curriculum that could empower
48:12
Speaker 1: people to make better decisions about the trajectory of their
48:17
Speaker 1: lives and that was really the kind of subtext or
48:22
Speaker 1: philosophy that has, you know, kind of empowered the whole thing.
48:27
Speaker 4: Another one of his guiding principles is to avoid labels.
48:30
Speaker 4: Role isn't totally comfortable with the idea that he's part
48:32
Speaker 4: of the wellness or self help industries. He says he's
48:36
Speaker 4: really just following his curiosity. His hope is to share
48:39
Speaker 4: conversations that help people to make real, lasting changes.
48:44
Speaker 1: I'm trying to catalyze people into action, right, And I
48:47
Speaker 1: think there is something to be said for people that
48:52
Speaker 1: read lots of self help books and think that they're
48:55
Speaker 1: changing their lives, but they're.
48:56
Speaker 2: Not actually implementing any of that advice.
48:59
Speaker 1: They're just and then they have a self awareness like, oh,
49:02
Speaker 1: this person said this is not amazing, and it's like
49:04
Speaker 1: they're just they're not making any changes in how they're living.
49:07
Speaker 2: So I am aware of that.
49:10
Speaker 1: But but I'm constantly talking about action. You know, what
49:15
Speaker 1: are the actions that you're taking. It's not how you
49:17
Speaker 1: feel about things, it's not you know, the idea that
49:20
Speaker 1: you have about them. It's like it all boils down
49:23
Speaker 1: to like what are you doing.
49:26
Speaker 4: After launching his podcast, Ritual didn't take a break for
49:29
Speaker 4: seven years, every week he faithfully uploaded a new episode.
49:34
Speaker 4: Someone who works in podcasting, I can tell you that
49:38
Speaker 4: is insane. Role finally recognized this, which is why he
49:42
Speaker 4: just took a month off. He unplugged for all of December,
49:45
Speaker 4: but we did pre record a number of episodes beforehand.
49:49
Speaker 4: His podcast kept rolling while he was gone.
49:52
Speaker 1: I think for many years I've been burning on. I've
49:56
Speaker 1: been sort of fueled by this unsustainable fuel source of
50:00
Speaker 1: like fear and desperation because because you know that that
50:05
Speaker 1: dark night of the soul and that that like dismantling
50:08
Speaker 1: was so traumatic.
50:10
Speaker 2: It left me with a PTSD.
50:12
Speaker 1: And now like everything's working and and like it's all awesome, but.
50:19
Speaker 2: I feel like I got to double down.
50:21
Speaker 1: I gotta work hard. I worked hard because it was
50:22
Speaker 1: so hard before that. I just don't want to miss
50:25
Speaker 1: this opportunity. And it's taken me a while to realize that,
50:28
Speaker 1: like I don't have to burn so hot, you know,
50:30
Speaker 1: like I have been, and that if I want to
50:32
Speaker 1: keep doing this, I really need to take a break.
50:34
Speaker 1: And I haven't taken a vacation in seven years, and
50:37
Speaker 1: I feel like I really need to do that. So
50:39
Speaker 1: I'm going to go completely off off radar for an
50:42
Speaker 1: entire month so that I can come back in the
50:44
Speaker 1: new year. So how'd that one go down for you?
50:52
Speaker 1: I can't objectively assess this. When the mics are turned
50:54
Speaker 1: around and I'm the one doing the talking, you guys
50:56
Speaker 1: are going to have to decide for yourself something a
50:59
Speaker 1: little bit different.
50:59
Speaker 3: I thought it was cool.
51:00
Speaker 2: Hope you guys enjoyed that. Do me a big favor.
51:03
Speaker 1: Show the folks at Outside Magazine a little bit of love.
51:06
Speaker 1: You can find them everywhere at Outside Magazine, and you
51:09
Speaker 1: can find the Outside podcast available in all the usual
51:12
Speaker 1: podcast places and at Outside online dot com Forward Slash Podcast.
51:18
Speaker 1: If you'd like to support the work we do here
51:19
Speaker 1: on the show, subscribe, rate and comment on it on
51:22
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or on Spotify.
51:24
Speaker 2: If you're on Android and.
51:26
Speaker 1: YouTube for the visually inclined, share the show or your
51:29
Speaker 1: favorite episodes with friends or on social media. I love
51:31
Speaker 1: seeing all the screen grabs on Instagram floating around, and
51:34
Speaker 1: you can always support us on Patreon, at ritual dot com,
51:37
Speaker 1: Forward Slash Donate. This episode was produced, written and edited
51:41
Speaker 1: by Michael Roberts, interview by Peter Vigneron, and music by
51:45
Speaker 1: Robbie Carver, with additional audio engineering and production by Jason Camiolo.
51:50
Speaker 1: I also want to thank Jessica Miranda for graphics, Boguereeley
51:53
Speaker 1: for portraits, DK for advertiser relationships, Georgia Whaley for copywriting,
51:57
Speaker 1: and theme music by Anlemma.
52:00
Speaker 2: I love you all.
52:00
Speaker 1: I will see you back here in a couple of days.
52:03
Speaker 1: Until then, stay true, Be true, Peace Plants m.