Creating a Foundation for Change: A Conversation with Rich Roll

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This is a podcast episode titled, Creating a Foundation for Change: A Conversation with Rich Roll. The summary for this episode is: Nutritional, physical, emotional, and mental wellness all play vital roles in our overall well-being. They affect our relationships, longevity, performance at work, and general life satisfaction. Because wellness is multifaceted, it can be hard to figure out how to start on the path toward improvement. That’s where today’s guest comes in. Rich Roll is an athlete, author, podcaster, and expert in all things wellness. In today’s conversation, he explains his holistic approach to wellness, shares what daily (and even hourly) microsteps you can take toward long term change, and talks about why wellness is so imperative to living a happy, fulfilling life.

Michael Rivo: Welcome back to Blazing Trails, I'm Michael Rivo from Salesforce Studios. I'm here with Blazing Trails producer, Rachel Levin. We are the team that brings you Blazing Trails. Rachel, how's it going?

Rachael Levin: First of all, Michael, it's Rachel Levin. You should know that.

Michael Rivo: I can't say it. I cannot say. We were just talking and you were saying how it's incredible that we've been working together so closely and we have never met each other.

Rachael Levin: That's right. Welcome to 2020. It has been a crazy year. Can we just pretend that it actually never happened?

Michael Rivo: I don't think we can. And in fact, we're doing something over this month of December to help us deal with the reality that is 2020 and our upcoming 2021. Rachel, tell us about what we've got planned for our episodes in December.

Rachael Levin: Yeah. Well, we're going to bring our listeners a real treat. We're going to bring you guys episodes from our B- Well Together series. And this is a series that really looks at mindfulness and how we can take care of ourselves, both body, mind, and soul. And I'm a journalist, Michael, so sometimes this woo- woo content isn't really me. But I have to say, these talks were really helpful and really inspiring.

Michael Rivo: Yeah. It's wonderful, really thoughtful and helpful content that the whole be-well and wellness team led by Jody Kohner here at Salesforce has put together, and we're really excited to be able to share some of this content. Can you tell us about who we're going to hear from?

Rachael Levin: Yeah, we're going to hear from Rich Roll. He's an ultra- athlete, best- selling author. We're going to get a nice therapy session from Esther Perel. She's a world famous, world renowned psychotherapist, and we're going to hear some words of wisdom from Alonzo King, phenomenal artist and someone who really can close out the year with some really nice perspective.

Michael Rivo: Okay, Rachel. Well, thank you so much for that preview and thanks for joining us today. And there's much more B- Well Together goodness. Head over to sfdc. co/ wellbeing, that's sfdc.co/wellbeing, and you can download our wellness playbook that was created in partnership with Thrive Global. And tune into some great sessions with Deepak Chopra, Megan Rapinoe, Arianna Huffington, and many, many more. So let's kick it off with B- Well Together host and [inaudible 00:02: 15 ], Jody Kohner, in conversation with ultra- athlete and best- selling author, Rich Roll.

Jody Kohner: Let me tell you, I cannot wait to start this session today. We have an ultra- riveting new episode today. Our guest is just be- well personified, from nourish to prosper. You're going to gain so much out of this one session. So just buckle up campers. I am thrilled to welcome to the show, a real living testament to the power of just human will, of personal transformation. Now, if you don't know Rich Roll's incredible story, let me just give you a little taste. He has achieved top finishes and grueling endurance races like the Ultraman World Championships, also garnered praise as one of the 25 most fittest men in the world. He is the author of the number one best- selling memoir Finding Ultra, and the cookbook, The Plantpower Way. So Rich now dedicates his life to just exploring human potential through lots of mediums. His Rich Roll podcast is one of them. But today, we're just going to really get some invaluable lessons of personal empowerment. We're going to talk about themes about wellness, the business of the human psyche and self- improvement. And then at the end, of course, we'll try to take some questions. So without further ado, Rich, welcome to our show.

Rich Roll: Thank you for having me. I'm delighted to be here today. I appreciate it.

Jody Kohner: So why don't we just start off with the big macro view of, what does wellness mean to you? What does that holistically look like?

Rich Roll: Yeah. Wellness is one of those terms that now feels like it's been co- opted and commercialized. But for me, wellness basically just means a commitment to constant progressive growth and iteration. Like, how can I be better today than I was yesterday across all aspects of what it means to be alive? Of course, it means fitness, it means paying attention to your diet, what you put in your body, what you put on your body. But also your mental health and your emotional health. How fit are your relationships with the people that you love? How productive are you throughout the day? What kind of employee are you? How do you function and operate in the workforce? And what is your connection to things like purpose? How are you contributing? How are you giving back? These are all tentacles or aspects, threads of what I consider wellness. So I think about it in really the broadest context.

Jody Kohner: Okay. And so there's so much surface area there to cover, and I know that you weren't always so into wellness, and especially when you have such a large surface area to cover. So can you try to tell us a little bit about your journey to get here? Because I think there's been some interesting obstacles along the way in some of those different areas.

Rich Roll: Yeah, sure. I'm 53 now, but I haven't always been a podcaster and into this kind of stuff. I mean, I grew up in a very traditional household, education was a big priority. I was always an insecure bookish kid who struggled with how to connect with other human beings and initially struggled academically. But I fell into the sport of swimming and that became my world. And the better I got in that sport, the better I got academically, and I was able to succeed at a young age. I ended up at Stanford University competing with some of the best swimmers in the world on the best collegiate swim team, swim program in the world. And I went to Cornell Law School and became a corporate lawyer initially in San Francisco and later in Los Angeles. But along the way, I had tremendous struggles with drugs and alcohol that landed me in rehab at 31. 100 day stint in which I really had to deconstruct how I was living my life on every level. And that was the first instance of understanding that perhaps there's a different way to live that was outside of this very traditional track that I was on. But even with that, 10 years into sobriety, I was still a corporate lawyer climbing the typical ladder. And found myself at 39, on the precipice of 40, 50 pounds overweight. And really not only dissatisfied with how I was living, my career choices, feeling very unfulfilled in that, but really tremendously unwell. And I characterize it like an existential crisis about how I was living that collided with a health scare that I had shortly before I turned 40, where I was walking up simple flight of stairs to go to sleep and had a heart incident. I had tightness in my chest, I had to take a break on a simple flight of stairs. I was buckled over, sweat on my brow and really scared that I was about to have a heart attack, because heart disease runs in my family. And it was a very specific moment in time that was similar to the day I decided I was going to quit drinking alcohol. And I realized that I was being blessed with a moment that could really be pivotal in changing how I was living. And I grabbed onto that. And that was the beginning of this journey that I've been on ever since, that began with changing my relationship to food and changing my relationship to my body and getting into fitness, and really being mindful and paying attention to everything that I was doing. And it's really just mushroom clouded from there. It led me into ultra- endurance sports and ultimately out of the law and to becoming this wellness entrepreneur and starting a podcast and writing books and the like. But it wasn't this grand plan that I had, it all happened very organically.

Jody Kohner: Well, first of all, thank you so much for being so open and honest with your experience. That's really helpful. I'd like to just ask for a moment, in those moments where you're having that epiphany, that moment on the stairs or that moment before you check yourself into rehab, what was it you grabbed onto? Sometimes it can be something that's just so small, but to help you break through and say, this is just the first step. But I feel like so often, people take that first step and then there's not a second step. And I'm wondering if we could just go deep on those particular moments, if you can think about that first step that it stuck and it meant something to you enough to take the second and third and fourth steps.

Rich Roll: Yeah. That's really the ultimate question, isn't it?

Jody Kohner: It is.

Rich Roll: If we can all grab on to those moments and create a foundation for change, then we can all grow. And I think, the way that I look at it is that, these things that happened to me aren't that unusual. I think that we're all blessed with these kinds of moments in our lives where the water is part a little bit, or there's a crack in the door and we feel like there's an opportunity to make a change. And I think it's very important to be always aware and paying attention so that when these moments visit us, that we're able to recognize them and to see the inherent potential energy that they hold. For me personally, these events were visited upon me and I was able to capitalize on them because I was in a tremendous amount of pain. Pain is always the ultimate motivator. If you're in enough pain, then the fear of the unknown is outweighed by the discomfort of the pain that you're in. So those are always very helpful leverage moments. So if you're in pain, understand that there's teachable moments, there's something inside of you that's trying to be expressed about change. And they can be sacred, they are opportunities truly. So rather than trying to avoid the pain, maybe go into it and say, what am I supposed to be learning here right now? But once you have that recognition, yes, you can take that first step. And believe me, I tried to get sober a million times and wasn't able to make it stick until I made a larger decision to ship myself off to a treatment center. But I think when you have those fleeting moments of inspiration, you've got to jump on them right away because they'll pass, and then you're back to your status quo. So the first thing is recognition, taking an action and making that action significant. When I decided, after that staircase episode, I'm going to change my relationship to food, I did a seven day juice fast. Not because I thought that would be the ultimate elixir to health, but I knew that I needed to do something hard that would shock my system and create some momentum around new habits. So it was as much emotional and mental as it was physical in that regard. So I think seeing the moment, taking an action that's perhaps drastic or at least out of your comfort zone is super important. And then planning, be organized and thoughtful about how you want to carry this energy forward. Get a big desktop calendar and write out on the calendar some goal out in the future and then backtrack from that and try to identify small, tiny little things that you can do every single day that aren't that hard, that aren't that intimidating or aren't that inconvenient. Because truly, these huge changes that I've been able to undergo and that I've seen happen in so many other people are not the result of going out and everyone's like, oh, did you run 30 miles today? No, it started with going out and walking around the block or maybe eating a salad for lunch as opposed to a cheeseburger. And it's those tiny little tweaks when you string them consistently over a large amount of time that really make the most difference. So understanding that it's really about what you're doing in the moment and the choices that you're making hour to hour to hour that move the lever. Because we tend to think that... We make these New Year's resolutions and we get frustrated a couple of months in because we haven't seen the results that we're seeking. We tend to overestimate what we can do in six months or a year and tremendously underestimate what we can do in a decade. We're here for a significant period of time, how can we make the most of that? And to be patient with yourselves and understand that these aren't short- term things. But what we want to do is create new lifestyle habits with staying power. And in order to do that, they have to work within the construct of our busy daily lives until they become rote and habits when we're not even thinking about them. And then you wake up one day and you're a very different person than you were a year ago, two years ago, 10 years ago.

Jody Kohner: I think we talk about that a lot on the show, about just the importance of micro- steps. And forgiveness for yourself when, you know what, I didn't get to the yoga mat today. And I really wanted to and it didn't happen and I'm not going to do yoga at 11: 30 at night just to put a check in the box. I'm going to go ahead and be okay with it and get up the next day and give it my best.

Rich Roll: Yeah, I think that's super important. Because if you then beat yourself up, you've made a second mistake. Beating yourself up isn't doing any good for anybody.

Jody Kohner: Right.

Rich Roll: It's just about, okay, maybe the better, healthier approach to why you didn't make the great choice is trying to understand why you didn't make that choice. Like, what was going on with me emotionally that I couldn't get on the mat that day? Was it just because I was disorganized or was there some resistance that I'm experiencing inside of me? Then when you unlock, oh, it's because I got in a fight with my spouse and I was frustrated or whatever it is. Better understanding that will help inform a better decision next time. And just say, all right, next time I'm going to make the better choice. What is the next best choice that I can make right now? And distancing or detaching from all the emotional baggage of beating yourself up like, oh, here I am again, I'm the person who can never make it on the mat. That's just a story and a narrative. And part of the growth process is creating a new narrative, a new story, and letting go of those narratives that don't serve.

Jody Kohner: Yeah. So I want to draft off of something you said before, when you were talking about how, you know what, it's not just a one- year thing, we're here for a long time. And for me personally, it's easy when I put a goal out there. A year from now, this is how I want to feel, this is how I want to look, this is how I'm going to show up in the world. And then I go and I achieve that goal. And what has happened to me a number of times in my life is that I achieved that goal and then it's like woo-woo, I achieved the goal. And then it's like, I just start crashing and I lose momentum. And then that depression sinks in and it's like, I couldn't keep it up and now it's going to be so much harder and I got to get back up on that horse. And I'm curious for you, for somebody who has just done these long endurance runs and had to overcome so much. The obstacles are one thing to overcome, but how do you overcome the, I achieved my goal and I need to keep going and I need to keep investing?. I don't want to dangle a carrot that I never get to-

Rich Roll: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jody Kohner: You know what I mean? To get and be like, woo- woo, I won. But on the other hand, sometimes achieving my goal is actually a setback because I'm not as focused anymore.

Rich Roll: Yeah, 100%. And that's why I think goals are tricky. I think it's important to have goals because they then set in motion a structure that creates a framework for how you live your life every single day. But the trick for me is to not focus so much on the goal. I know there's a goal living out there in the distance, whether it's a race or finishing a book or whatever it is. And that's helpful in helping me make better decisions about how I allocate my time every day. But the key is understanding that it's really not about achieving the goal, it's about how you're living your life every single day. And I think you mentioned you had Shane Parrish on this program not too long ago. I had him on my podcast and he talks a lot about organizing your life around your value system. So if your goal is to run a marathon, achieving that goal isn't really what you're truly after. What you're truly after is organizing your life around a certain value, which is, I'm somebody who goes running and enjoys the outdoors and is an active person. And aligning your behavior with that value is really the true win. It's not about crossing the finish line, it's about becoming somebody more authentic to who you are that's more in alignment with those values. And I think when you can organize your thinking around that structure, as opposed to an end point on a calendar, then you're in a better position to perpetuate whatever the behavior is. And I know as somebody who's trained very hard to achieve goals in these crazy ultra- endurance races, when I think back on those experiences, I barely remember crossing the finish line. It wasn't about that. It's about the person that I became in the process of tackling something very difficult, and the experiences that I had along the way. Like that one day that I just didn't want to get out of bed and do that incredibly difficult workout, or the friendships that I made along this journey that continue to give my life value. That is what you're getting out of these experiences, it's not the medal or any of that other kind of nonsense. So I think when you just start thinking about... when you get really clear on your value system and the person you want to be, then you're in a better position to make these things habitual, as opposed to temporal.

Jody Kohner: Oh my gosh, this is so resonating with me. Our company is a very, very values focused company. We put this at the heart and center of everything we do. And I think you've just articulated that so well and I can just see light bulbs. I'm imagining light bulbs going off over our audience right now in that values and behaviors are intricately linked. It's not just a thing that's, you strive for that's nebulous and out there. It's how you show up every day. I think that's fantastic. Let me shift gears a little bit. I think that you have to be really living in a pretty deep cave and under a pretty deep rock right now not to be feeling just the mental exhaustion that comes with all that we're living through right now and all that is happening in our world. I'm curious about how through some of your training and some of these endurance races, what you've learned about pacing yourself and keeping a healthy mindset when the obstacles are seemingly insurmountable and the end is just nowhere in sight.

Rich Roll: Mm- hmm( affirmative). Yeah. It can be extremely overwhelming. I mean, we're all enduring something that is completely unprecedented-

Jody Kohner: We're all ultra- marathoners right now.

Rich Roll: This is its own strange ultra- endurance event that's testing us in ways that we've never been tested. And it came out of our field in a manner in which we were ill- prepared to navigate it. And we're all being tested right now. We're all being asked to stand up and weather something that is extremely difficult. And I think it's important to first acknowledge that, like, hey, this is weird and hard and I don't have all the answers. And for me, it all comes back to getting really clear on what we can control and what we can't control. When I went to this treatment center, one of the first things I learned, one of the first principles that I think about every single day is the serenity prayer," Help me control what I can control and let go of the things that I can't." And right now, there are so many things that we can't control. So understanding that truly all we can do is take domain over our own behavior and how we respond and react to the world, and not get caught up in all the things that we can't control that make us crazy is really fundamental to trying to maintain your health. I think also reframing what's happening, not as, oh, this is a crisis and it's terrible, but trying to see it as an opportunity. Instead of, this is happening to me, isn't it terrible? Look at it like, this is happening for me, what is the lesson in here that's going to allow me to grow? And when you have this lens of looking at the world like, everything is here for my growth opportunity and this is just another thing. How can I be more emotionally resilient? How can I be more emotionally agile? And look at this and say, here's an opportunity for me where I'm being compelled to slow down and stop in a way that's very uncomfortable. Because now I have to really look at myself in the mirror and I can't just run away from all of these things that I've been doing for a very long time that I'd prefer to just be in denial over. And let's unpack that, let's deconstruct that and let's see how I can make changes now in this moment of forced rapports that can make my life better. So if you're unhappy with some aspect of your life, perhaps there is an opportunity now to reconstruct that, look at it differently. And I think your opening question was, what is wellness to you? Well, here's a moment in which we can tackle wellness in its broadest way. To say, okay, I need to... Here I am at home, I'm still working, how am I going to organize my day? And not just, what is my food intake going to be like? When am I going to be able to get outside? How am I going to move and connect to nature? How am I going to interact with my family that's climbing on top of me now and knock in the fights? But also, what is our information diet? What are the choices that we're making about the news that we're letting in, or our relationship to our devices and social media? And how is that making me feel? What is the emotional, mental impact of the scrolling and the getting caught up in the dopamine spikes that come with seeing some outlandish thing happening on the other side of the country? All of that has a tremendous impact on us emotionally. And here's our opportunity to reframe all of these things, to get really clear on what our values are. And to start taking actions with a little bit of extra free time that we have, because we're not commuting and doing these other things. To create new habits that can make us more fully expressed and self- actualized.

Jody Kohner: So I'm curious, and through your own words of wisdom, what have you learned about yourself? What are the lessons that you've found during this period for your own journey?

Rich Roll: I mean, for me, initially when this whole thing began, I thought, well, I've been training for this my whole life. This is going to be awesome. I'm an introvert and I would prefer to be left alone anyway. And I can just inaudible and nobody's going to call me and ask me to do-

Jody Kohner: You've been waiting your whole life for this moment.

Rich Roll: Yeah. I'm like, now everybody is on my level. And what I've discovered is that this story that I tell myself about being introverted and about not needing to be in social settings all of the time is really just a story. I've found myself very lonely and feeling... really missing connection with other human beings. And that's been a teachable moment for me to realize I really downplayed the importance of my friendships and the interpersonal physical connections that I have with other human beings, and I missed that. And that was something that I think I wasn't fully aware of. Also, a hidden blessing is, I've got two older boys who were living across town in an apartment. They moved home, we've got all our four kids here. And this has been an opportunity for us as a family to grow closer. And it's been really hard for our 16 year old daughter. It's tremendously emotionally challenging for her to have her whole life pulled away from her and to have her older brothers around. And to have her parents and her stuck at home has been this crucible where we've had this rollercoaster ride that hasn't always been easy and very difficult and some very emotional conversations. But I think ultimately, these are all experiences that have brought us together closer and will make all of us better family members and better human beings. Learning to be gentle with yourself. When I experienced the melancholy of feeling like I'm stuck at home, this is real. And it's important to appreciate that and recognize that and try to be gentle on yourself.

Jody Kohner: Yeah. Gentle on yourself and I think empathetic with others. Everyone is carrying a 10 pound bag of rocks right now, and it looks different for everyone. A teenage daughter's angst is different than my seven- year- old who has gone so deep into an imaginary world that trying to explain that there's no dragon in the house for her to hunt is sometimes a huge challenge.

Rich Roll: And when you see these viral videos that go around where people are losing their minds and doing a bunch of crazy stuff, my first thought is, what's going on in their life that just beneath the surface was that rage or that sense of discontentedness that led to that outburst? We're all suffering in different ways right now and I think empathy is certainly key.

Jody Kohner: So what are you working on right now? I think you've done some pretty incredible things with businesses and writing books. Tell us what you're doing right now, from a non endurance training thing?

Rich Roll: Yeah. I'm finishing up a book right now called Voicing Change, which is timeless wisdom and inspiration from the podcast. I've been doing this podcast now for seven- and- a- half years. I've had 530 episodes long form, like two, three hour conversations with amazing people. And this book is really an effort to take some of those pearls of wisdom that I've learned over the years and condense them down into this coffee table book with beautiful photographs and excerpts from some of the great minds that I've had the opportunity to sit down with, with some essays and some additional thoughts. So I'm just taking this moment of pause to really finish this project, which will be coming out in November. So I'm pretty excited about that.

Jody Kohner: That's awesome. And tell me the name again?

Rich Roll: It's called Voicing Change.

Jody Kohner: Voicing Change. And how did you come to that? I mean, it's a big deal, when you take 500 plus podcasts and you've got to get it down to a title. So how did you land there?

Rich Roll: How did I land there? I can't remember how I arrived at the title. I mean, I think the title really speaks to this idea that we're living in interesting times. And I come from an era where your only exposure to information was the three networks on the evening news and whatever.

Jody Kohner: I'm familiar with that era.

Rich Roll: Besides from the textbook in high school and college. And now we're in an era where there's all kinds of interesting new voices that we're able to access and hear from that are just a little outside that mainstream narrative. And I think finding those people and being able to spread their wisdom and their thoughts has been the greatest gift of my life. And they're all speaking to some aspect of change, whether it's personal change, planetary change, political change, whatever it is. We're all looking to be part of positive change in the world at large, with ourselves and with our families and our colleagues and our friends. And really, the earth is this global community that the internet has created.

Jody Kohner: Amazing. You are such a delight to speak with. My soul just feels really good this morning. Thank you so much for being here. Is there anything else that I didn't ask about that you want to leave our audience thinking about?

Rich Roll: I'm so used to doing two- and- a- half hour podcasts.

Jody Kohner: You're like, I'm just getting going.

Rich Roll: It's very difficult for me to answer questions precisely, so-

Jody Kohner: This has been wonderful. You've done great. You've got short format in your future too.

Rich Roll: Thank you. I hope everyone enjoyed it.

Michael Rivo: That was Rich Roll with Salesforce's Jody Kohner, discussing how to up your health and fitness game. For more wellness resources and great interviews from our B- Well Together series, head over to sfdc. co/ wellbeing. That's sfdc. co/ wellbeing. I'm Michael Rivo from Salesforce Studios. Thanks for joining us today.

DESCRIPTION

Nutritional, physical, emotional, and mental wellness all play vital roles in our overall well-being. They affect our relationships, longevity, performance at work, and general life satisfaction. Because wellness is multifaceted, it can be hard to figure out how to start on the path toward improvement. That’s where today’s guest comes in. Rich Roll is an athlete, author, podcaster, and expert in all things wellness. In today’s conversation, he explains his holistic approach to wellness, shares what daily (and even hourly) microsteps you can take toward long term change, and talks about why wellness is so imperative to living a happy, fulfilling life.