Transcript of An Episode For Anyone Feeling Behind in Life

Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. The person you're about to meet is living proof that it is never too late to transform your life. In fact, it can happen at any moment. New York Times bestselling author Rich Roll is here, and he is about to take you through the jaw-dropping twists and turns of what it's like to wake up and realize the life you're living needs to change. He's reinvented himself not once, not twice, but three different times. These are the lessons that he learned from overcoming a debilitating alcohol addiction. He'll tell you the exact steps that he took to go from not being able to walk up a flight of stairs to becoming a world-class endurance athlete in his 40s. And he's also going to give you this secret to believing that there's something better. Rich is also a very close friend of mine, and I have been wanting to introduce you to this man for a long time. He is here to prove to you that if he can change his life three times, you can change yours. So if you've ever asked yourself, Is this all there is?

Is this how my life is always going to feel? If you don't like where you are or where you're going, it is never too late to change. And my hope is that listening to this episode will actually be that moment for you to make the change. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. It is always such an honor to be together and spend this time with you. If you're a new listener or you're here because somebody shared this with you, I want to personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family. Today, you're going to learn how to change your life at any age from someone who has done it three times. Rich Roll is here. He's the host of the award-winning Rich Roll podcast. In his 40s and 50s, he has become a professional ultra-endurance athlete. Men's Health named him one of the fittest men on the planet, and they called him the world's fittest vegan alive. Now, I know that sounds impressive, and Rich is impressive, but he has not always been this way. He has transformed his life, and he's going to show you how to do it yourself.

So please help me welcome my friend Rich Roll to the Mel Robbins podcast. Rich Roll in the house. I am so excited you're here.

I'm very excited to be here. This is a long time coming. We've known each other a long time, so it lined up. It's great. I'm here. Let's do it.

Well, thank you for jumping on a plane. I cannot wait for the person that's with us right now to get to experience the magic that is my friend Rich Roll. So we're going to cover a lot in our conversation, but I would love if you could start by telling the person who's with us right now what they might experience in their life that could be different if they take everything to heart that you're about to share from your own life story and they apply it to their own life.

If you are struggling, if you are stuck, I can promise you that there is hope, that if you want to change, you can change. Because I believe that every single one of us is far more capable than we allow ourselves to believe. And that right under Underneath our feet is a vast reservoir of untapped potential, just yearning to be released. Our job is to bring it forth, to release it into the world.

One of the reasons why I am so excited to have this conversation with you is because your life demonstrates that there is no age limit for when you can change, when you can achieve to believe things. And in fact, I would love to have you read the post that you put out that I think is so inspiring.

So this was six years ago. I didn't reach my athletic peak until I was 43. I didn't write my first book until I was 44. I didn't start my podcast until I was 45. At 30, I thought my life was over. At 52, I know it's just beginning. Keep running, never give up, and watch your kite soar.

What does that mean to you?

To me, it means that change is always possible. I think that we put all of this pressure on ourselves. We are in a hurry all the time to get to some place, and we're indoctrinated into that at a very young age. From the beginnings of school, where we're chasing grades and trying to get to the next level, there's always some goal that we're chasing or some gold star that we're grabbing for, and we're measuring our self-worth against the extent to which we're keeping up with our peers. And so this race begins before our brains are even close to being formed, and we carry it through our entire life, putting pressure on ourselves, always believing that we're behind and we have to catch up or we're just never going to get there. And I think that's a real violence that we do, this socially imposed violence. And in my experience, Yes, life is short. We have one precious life. We should all devote ourselves to making the most of it. But life is also long, and we're not in a race. So stop measuring yourself against all these other people and figure out who you want to be, what it is that you want to do, and start taking those little baby steps towards it, and it will lead you in a direction that might take longer than other people.

But in my experience, that's okay. And this is a tweet that I sent out now six years ago. And I don't know if I would say I'm still at the beginning, but I'm not nearly at the end right now.

And I'm still- But you're at the beginning of something.

Yeah. We're always at the beginning of something. Growth, change, evolution, transformation, This is a lifelong path that we're on. So there's always something to learn. There's always a way to grow.

Well, and I cannot wait to get into your story and the lessons learned like me the hard way, and the mistakes and the wisdom that you gained from it. But before we do, I would love to have you talk directly to the person who's either listening or watching right now. And it's so easy in life to get to this point. You're like, I blew it. 25, majored in the wrong thing, did the wrong thing, missed the window 30, 40. For somebody, whatever age they are saying it's too late, what do you want to tell them?

It's not too late. This is a story that we internalize and dilute ourselves into believing. But it's just that. It's a story. When you can step back and deconstruct it, you realize it's insane. It's a template that's been laid on top of you that I think is arranging our minds in a very violent way that makes us feel bad about ourselves. It's not too late. There's always a possibility for you to move in a new direction or change the trajectory of your life wholesale or even make those micro changes that are going to just shift your trajectory just enough to lead you in a direction that is going to be more personally fulfilling for you.

I love this, Rich. I absolutely love this. You have such an incredible story. You've been named one of the 25 fittest men in the world by Men's Fitness. You literally raised... If you weren't watching on YouTube, Rich put his arms out just a minute ago. Your wingspan is nuts. I bet your arm went across the screen and disappeared across the YouTube screen here. And so I didn't realize that your wing... I realized you were a swimmer, dude.

I never even knew that.

You went like this. I'm like, Is he about to take flight? This man is like, I don't know what a big bird is, but he's like, I mean, unbelievable. And you say, though, as a kid, that you were shy, insecure, and bullied. So tell me about that.

Yeah, I was a very scared and afraid young person who was bullied considerably through elementary school and junior high school and high school.

What did they pick on you about? Because I look at you now, I'm like, Man, what a handsome guy. He's got it together. You got the beer dude.

Let me paint the I'm not sure. Okay. Imagine the 10, 12-year-old version of me, giant thick Coke bottle glasses. Not only that, a patch on one eye, because I have a weak left eye that wanders.

So they literally cover it?

Do you remember in the '70s? Yeah, they put a patch on it. They put a patch on your strong eye, and the idea is it will strengthen your weak eye. So I had to wear a patch on one eye. And then on top of that, I had the headgear orthodontia with the wires coming out of the mouth and the strap behind your back. So I was not a vision for you, Mel. Hardly.

Well, I don't know. I had a Dorothy Hamel haircut and buck teeth, so you might have been just my type, Rich.

Yeah, it's hard to be young. It's hard to be young. So, yeah, I was bullied. I think those experiences made me withdraw socially and made me very insecure about my behavior and my appearance. And my solution to that was just to fade into the background, at least initially.

How did that experience shape who you are today?

It made me a people-pleasing, approval-addicted person who would literally morph to fit the occasion in order to get love and approval. And I think layered on top of that being raised in a family in which expectations ran high, I intuited that love is transactional, that I'm not entitled to it. And the only way to get it is to somehow figure out how to distinguish myself, to achieve things, to figure out how to be special, and to commit myself to extrinsic external rewards. Because otherwise, I was unworthy of love and unworthy of approval.

So is that what drove you to get the grades that got you into Stanford and to become a world-class athlete at the collegiate level?

Yeah, I think that's a huge part of the motor behind that.

So how did you compete if you got headgear on? How did you discover swimming?

Swimming was the only thing that I'd stumbled across as a young person that I felt like I had any aptitude for whatsoever, and I enjoyed it. More than that, the experience of being underwater felt almost womb-like, like a safe place away from the bullying, away from the name calling. And I learned very quickly in the pool, having joined a team in which there were a lot of swimmers who were much more talented and accomplished than I was, I'm talking about around the time I was 12, 13 years old, that I could bridge that talent deficit gap by just working harder than everybody else. And so that's where the relationship with suffering and just being the hardest worker in the room was born because I was quickly rewarded for that. And that started to spill into every aspect of my life, including academics, to my benefit.

Well, all that effort that you put in paid off because by the time you were in your early 20s, you not only had gone to Stanford, but you were also in law school. You had a fancy job after law school. On the outside, everything seemed like it was working out, but it really wasn't. So put us at the scene of the first thing that started to spiral out of control in your life. Yeah.

Well, first, I would say that this affinity for extremes is definitely a strength, if not a superpower, but ultimately also my greatest weakness an Achilles heel. What serves us also harms us when it's out of balance. And that's my experience. And I think, yes, all of that focus and discipline paid off in a very real material But that came at a cost, which is that I had blinders on. I was being funneled into a certain track, and I figured out how to play that game. What was that track? I was playing high achievement. Get the good grades, get into the... I got into all eight colleges that I applied to, including Harvard, Princeton, you name it. I got into all the schools. Wow. Rich roll, go off. Then I was one of the top ranked high school swimmers in the country. I go to Stanford, which is not only, obviously this insanely amazing academic institution, but also at the time had the number one men's collegiate swimming program in the country. So I went from this bullied, insecure, navel-gazing kid to this guy at Stanford who was suddenly surrounded by his athletic heroes. But I think, yes, I was still, to some degree, being funneled on a track.

And the promise, the implicit promise at the end of this funnel is, of course, you will be happy, you will be fulfilled, you will have a good life. And I believed in that promise. And I'm sure for many people, It's true. But in my case, the pursuit of that track was a betrayal of who I fundamentally was as a person. My whole life was jamming a square peg into a round hole. And that creates an uncomfortable ability or like a dissonance with your higher self that is a low hum until it's not. And alcohol, I'm sure we're going to talk about this, entered the picture to ameliorate that.

Could you How would you describe what does it feel like to be in a life where you're being funneled, even if it's successful on the outside? What is that like to be in a life where you're like, it just doesn't quite fit. You know what I mean?

Yeah. I mean, first of all, you don't know that you're in it. That's the truth, right? You may know your intuition, your deep down intuition that you're repressing and compartmentalizing is trying to get your attention, but you don't want to hear it, right? So it is difficult to know if you're not on the right track or not. And I'm sensitive to that. But I do think that there is something that I call the knock, right? I think that when you're you're off your trajectory, when you're off your true path, not to get too woo-woo about it, but the universe lets you know. And it begins to let you know very gently. A little tap Something you thought would go right might go wrong, or there's a little friction in one area of your life. And these are things we dismiss. Moving on.

What are some of the things like when you're in the lawyer mode? What are the gentle knocks before the sledgehammer hits you?

Well, that gaze in the mirror in the morning, where you have to get yourself up to just get dressed to go to the job. I think this is common to most people who are on a certain career path that is less fulfilling than maybe it could be. The fact that you have to psych yourself up just to get to work and simple tasks feel daunting. And then you look around the office and the people who got the promotion that you've told yourself that you want don't look very happy and are compensating for it by spending too much money on things they can't afford. But you don't quite register that and you convince yourself that nonetheless, you want that promotion without really reflecting on, is this what I want and why do I want it? And so I think the universe is trying to get your attention. Hey, look over there. See what's happening. And you ignore it, and it starts to knock louder and it knocks louder, it knocks louder. It knocks louder until it derails your life to an extent to which you're willing to listen and take accountability for your life.

Well, you mentioned alcohol. You've been very open about your relationship with alcohol, addiction, the role that it played in your life, and this life-changing breakdown that you had. How did it all begin?

Yeah, I mean, first of all, I never got in trouble in high school. I was a goody-goody. I was waking up at 4: 30 every morning and going to some practice for an hour and a half and then going to school and then going back to the pool for two more hours and then studying and then lights out at 9: 00. I didn't go to parties. I wasn't invited to the parties anyway. And so my career with alcohol didn't start until a little bit later than it does for a lot of people around the time I was 20, 21. When I got my first buzz, I suddenly felt comfortable in my own skin for the very the first time. That low-grade dissonance or discomfort that you've had your whole life that you don't even know that it could feel any different than that, evaporated. And it just felt like I was being wrapped in a warm blanket and being told that everything was okay. And all I remember about that is just that I wanted to feel that way all the time. And I thought that I had found the solution for my life. But alcohol, getting drunk was really fun, and it solved a lot of my social anxiety.

And it taught me how to be a social creature and talk to a girl and go to a party and crack a joke and look somebody in the eye. I felt like it was an education in how to be a social animal. But as any alcoholic will tell you, it's not long before the veneer cracks and your life starts to get progressively more chaotic and more unmanageable.

One of the things that I also love about the way that you talk about addiction is that it's way beyond alcohol. People can become addicted to lots of different things, whether it's to busyness, to drugs, to video games, to toxic relationships, to chaos in their lives. Can you talk a little bit more about that just to widen the spectrum?

I've been in recovery for a long time. I've seen people get sober, I've seen people die. And what I've taken, of the many things I've taken from this experience is a conviction that addiction is very much a spectrum disease. It's a disease in which we put all this focus on The behavior or the substance, alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex and love. But these are not the problem. These are the solution to the problem. When you remove alcohol from an alcoholic's life, you're basically forcing that person to break up with their best friend, their reliable coping strategy for life. And what you're left with is a raw nerve of a human being that then has to be healed. And I think we have traditionally thought of addiction in the context of these behaviors and substances, but I think that's a very restrictive definition. I think to some degree or another on this spectrum, we can all relate to behaviors that we feel powerless to change or overcome or compulsions we know are leading us astray, and yet we keep doing it and doing it despite wreaking havoc on our lives.

When you said the word compulsion, there are these things that you keep doing that you can't stop yourself from doing, it made me think of a number of things, whether it was the wildly violent and self-destructive behavior when I was in College and law school, undiagnosed trauma, undiagnosed ADHD, didn't even know I had anxiety yet, and I was a liar. I cheated on boyfriends, just excessive drinking. I would always wake up the next day and be like, I'm not doing that again. Then I would feel just compelled to do it again. The trap of that, but I'd never thought about it on the spectrum of the disease of addiction. But you're right, because it became this thing that I kept saying, I'm not going to do this again. And then I would do it again. And then I would feel so shitty about myself. And then I would say, I'm not going to do it again. And then I would do it again.

Yeah, that's powerlessness. That's And that is a taste of the powerlessness of somebody who's caught in the throes of an addiction they can't control, and their life is spiraling and unmanageable. I'm very grateful that I had a pretty severe case of alcohol alcoholism because it turned my life into such a chaotic disaster that I was left with no choice if I wanted to live, that I was going to have to contend with it and figure out a way forward. But I think most people on this spectrum Whether it's some errant behavior, like they keep getting involved with the wrong person in a romantic relationship and are confused why it's always ending up in a terrible result or the person who can't put down their phone or is compulsively be online shopping or comparing themselves to beautiful men and women on social media, all the way to the person who can't pull the needle out of their arm. Having a severe case of addiction really is a gift because you're going to have to face it. Whereas if you have a low-grade version of it, you could live out the remainder of your life never getting bad enough that you're compelled to look at it.

You're saying that it got absolutely disastrous, and at the height of your addiction, you write about how your parents stopped talking to you. I would love to just have you explain what a day in your life looked like and how bad it got. Because I think when you look at you now and you're like, Yeah, I got really bad and thankful. Unless you've ever experienced it yourself or you have somebody that you love, it's hard to even imagine what that actually looks like.

I would say that my drunkalog is not sexy. It's not rock and It's pretty boilerplate and banal. I was sleeping on a bare mattress in an unfurnished bedroom, unfurnished apartment, drinking around the clock. I would wake up, hung over having hallucinations and bedspins and night sweats. The only way I could make that go away was to make myself a vodka tonic and drink it in the shower in the morning. Then I would feel better. Not drunk, just normal. Get dressed, get in the car with a tall boy between my legs and drive across Los Angeles. And I would literally go to work as a lawyer. And then at lunchtime, I would go sneak out to some restaurant or bar where I could get a couple more drinks in me to make it through the end of the day. There's no way that was going to last. And it didn't last. And then as As soon as I could escape from work, having done the least amount possible, I would stop at a liquor store on the way home, and I would get drunk by myself in my apartment, and then I would go out to some bar by myself.

There was nothing social about it. It was by myself. Just sad, lonely, pathetic, and it would always end up the same, which is in a blackout or in a situation that involved the cops in jail. That's how it ultimately all came to a head for me.

You had a number of DUIs before you hit rock bottom. What ultimately had you hit that moment in your life where you changed?

I got two DUIs in a period of, I think it was six or eight weeks of each other.

Six or eight weeks?

Like, blowing insanely high numbers, one of which involved me rear-ending an old woman at an intersection, the second of which involved me driving the wrong way down a one-way street, both ending up in jail and then having those two DUIs stacked on top of each other going into court like I was looking at jail time. But that was on my bottom, and I didn't get sober in a sustainable way after that. I had to suffer more and go darker. And that elevator just had to keep going down before I was really ready to wake up, which is a conversation around rock bottoms and what that really means.

What does a rock bottom moment mean?

Your rock bottom is what you decided to be, because if the elevator is going down, there is no ground level. It can always go further down until you're dead. People change when the pain of their circumstances exceeds the fear of finally doing something different. So that's how I think about rock bottom. When you're in that space, you're birthed with a willingness that you didn't have prior.

I think a lot about a couple of people in my life that are really struggling. And the one phrase that I say, because I know you can't make someone change, I always say, Do you You're going to get worse before you get better.

But here's the thing. When you're in a shitty headspace and your life spiraling out of control, I know for myself, when I was in the throes of alcoholism, I'm sure plenty of people said that to me. I didn't want to hear it. I'm like, I don't care. Go away. When you're so caught up in that cycle of craving and reward and your life is spiraling out of control, until you are in that moment where your pain is enough to exceed that fear of doing something different, does that message land with the person?

Probably not. I'm glad you said that because I want to know what to say. I I know that it must have been the hardest thing in the world for your parents to stop talking to you.

The hardest, most painful thing that they had to endure.

Since you've been on this side of it, is there anything anybody can say?

As you know, you can't get somebody to change who doesn't want to change. You cannot will willingness upon them, which is very difficult, particularly in the context of a parent who's watching their child suffer from an addiction. The addicted person is powerless over that behavior, but also the parents are powerless to change that. Every instinct is to rush in and solve the problem, to save this person, to prevent them from doing this thing that so clearly is wrecking their life. The problem is that that instinct doesn't always play out with positive results. So I think what you have to do is love the individual, not love the behavior, and create boundaries around yourself and that behavior. Like, I love you. You're clearly suffering. What you're doing, I'm not down with. Here's why. And until you're ready to do something about that, I'm unavailable to you, which is essentially what my said to me. I'm not saying that this is an easy thing to do, and I'm not saying that it's an appropriate strategy in all circumstances. I can only say that in my case, it was an important piece that led me towards sobriety eventually because I could no longer look to them to solve my problem or to be codependent in my behavior.

They were no longer available, which meant the mirror flipped, and suddenly I had to take responsibility for myself, and it was up to me to decide whether I wanted to keep doing this or not.

Did they leave the door open?

Yes. When you're ready for help, we're available. And they were.

You mentioned that your elevator had to go lower. What made you finally turn the corner for yourself? What was that moment like, Okay, I have found the willingness for myself?

Well, the crazy thing is that the day I finally woke up and said, Okay, today's the day I'm going to and I'm going to get sober. The night before wasn't great. I mean, I definitely woke up hung over. But I got to tell you, I've had way lower moments, way crazier, chaotic experiences. Really? So it's not a one to one ratio thing. I'd gone to jail and gotten DUIs, and I had a marriage that exploded on the honeymilk. I've endured a lot of low moments. But the day I finally woke up and had that willingness was a pretty normal day of waking up hungover. It wasn't drama-infused in any way. So that day wasn't my rock bottom. But when I looked back, I realized that I was in such emotional angst and pain from those other lower moments that it creates a paralysis. I had to medicate myself through that before I could actually take the action to do something about it. And I think that's also a common thing you were referring to it. When you're in it, sometimes it's so intense. You can't. You can't sermon the will to do anything about it because you're just too deep in it.

And you can't possibly imagine that things could get better.

No way. Yeah. And so you resign yourself to it. This is my life.

This is going to sound like a weird comment, but I feel like that feels very hopeful to me that it doesn't have to be that you have the worst of the worst of the worst as the moment. There comes a moment where your ability to tolerate it any longer, that the pain of staying where you're at is actually greater than the thing that you need to be willing to do.

But here's the thing, pain is this amazing teacher. It can- I know, but it sounds stupid when we say it, right? I know, but it's crazy. It's like it can get you to do things you would never ordinarily do in a good way and in a bad way. But the insane thing is that every single moment presents us with the choice or the opportunity to make a different decision and go a different way. It's just that there's something about the way humans are hardwired that it's so difficult unless we're up against the wall to make that behavior shift.

Rich, if somebody is in the middle of supporting somebody who's spiraling, what is, based on your experience, just the recommendation for how you approach those situations?

Yeah, it's very difficult, again, to give general advice. Obviously, very personal. Yeah, if somebody is in a life-threatening situation. So I'm reluctant to give blanket advice on this. But I think in general, the message is, I love you. Your life is spiraling out of control. I can no longer stand idly by and just witness this. But if and when you're ready to make a change, I will be the first one here. But in the meantime, I'm not going to loan you money. I'm not going to cosign your bullshit. I'm not available for that. But there is hope, there is help, and I'm here for you 100 %. I just want you to know that.

I love that. And there's something in saying that that also in a weird way communicates I actually believe in your ability to figure this out.

And that's a key piece as well. I can see the real you beneath all of this. And my wife says this all the time, I'm holding a vision for that. I am holding you in that higher space. I'm claiming it for you because you can't right now. And I believe in that version of you. And I'm not going anywhere. But I'm not going to do these things that I historically maybe have done or which you are going to be very upset with me because I'm no longer available for.

Let's give props to your wife, Julie.

She's the one.

Well, I just, as a parent and as a friend, feel like even if you have somebody that's spiraling in self-doubt over something that you know they're capable of, that It's a beautiful way to say to somebody, I am holding a vision of who I know you to be and what you're capable of, and I'm not going to participate in a conversation where you're engaging in this much self-criticism and self-doubt.

It also It takes the judgment out of it.

Yes.

No one wants to be judged. And when you're in that dark space, you already feel horrible about yourself. The last thing you need is for somebody to come to you and look down at you. When someone comes to you from that passionate place and says, I love you and I see you, and I believe in you. I believe in you to find your way. I believe in you to find your path. I know that you're capable of doing that. That's an incredible vote of confidence and encouragement in a situation in which almost everybody is going to meet that person with condescension and judgment.

If somebody is hanging on every word and they're right in it.

Yeah. The thing about being in it is that you can't see the way forward. And somebody can say to you, Do this, don't do that. You should read this book, listen to this podcast. But it's very difficult to hear that because, at least for me, the looping message is you don't understand how unique my problems are. You can't possibly fathom how different I am from whatever you're telling me. And you create that separation as a level of self-protection. And I think the advice is you do what you can in the moment you find yourself in. And I think When life has gone haywire, it's impossible to see what it could be like. And we allow that to prevent us from taking action. We want to know, well, if I do this, where is it going to go and what's it going to get me and what path am I going to be on? And the truth is, you don't get to see that. All you get to do is that one next thing. And when you're ready, the next thing will be shown to you. And then your job is to do that. These bricks get laid one by one.

And I think we think that we're supposed to see clear-eye into the future and where that's going to lead us. But I can tell you, when I landed in alcoholics anonymous, I couldn't see outside the window where my life was going to be. It was impossible for me to imagine that I would ever emerge out of this and create a life that would be personally meaningful to me. And the only way I was able to do it is It was literally by doing the thing that was this close to being in front of me to do. And just, okay, I did that. Now, what do I do? I don't know. I think it would be good if I do, okay, I'll do that. Taking those actions, developing that reflex to act, and more will be revealed.

Rich, I am so grateful for this conversation and for your openness and your thoughtfulness. I want to take a quick break, but I also want to say something else. As you're listening to our sponsors, be generous. Please share this episode with people in your life who need to hear it. If someone in your life is stuck, if they need to change, if life isn't going the way that you wish it would for them, let Rich be a resource for them. Let this conversation be the spark that inspires the person that you care about to change. Also, don't go anywhere because Rich and I are going to be right back with so much more to share with you. So stay with us. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. And today, you and I are here learning about how you can change your life at any age from the incredible ritual. So fast forward, you get sober, you meet Julie, you're in your late 30s, you've reinvented yourself, right? You're Getting your life back on track, and it's the day before you turn 40 and you have another work in the road. Can you talk to me about what was going on in your life?

Because you're like... I I don't want to brand you as the king of reinvention, but I think one of the reasons why people love you so much is one of the reasons why they also relate to me. It's really cool to see somebody turn their life around a little bit later in It's really cool to see somebody who's in their 40s or 50s changing their career and doing new things and also dominating in the things that you decide to do. And so you get sober, you turn your life around, and now it's your late 30s, but your health is just horrendous. So talk to me about what's going on.

Yeah, it's even more than that. I mean, 31, I get sober. Yeah. That begins with voluntarily incarcerating myself in what's essentially a mental institution for 100 days. Oh, you did? Well, I went to treatment. Okay. So it's like, treatment is a very polite word for basically people who are unhinged in some unhealthy way, right?

You're not selling it, Rich.

Listen, it saved my life. Okay. But 100 days is a long time to go away for. This was no 28-day rinse and wash, right? I really had a lot that I had to get to the bottom of. I emerged from that experience, returned to Los Angeles, and immersed myself in the recovery community. My job was to create a solid foundation of sobriety, and I was very committed to that. I returned to the law firm. They took you back? That supported me while I went away. That's a whole other story. And even though I already knew enough at that time to know that I picked the wrong career for me, it felt like the right thing to do to go back and work there at least as long as I had been away. But I will say, despite having built this foundation for long term sobriety, despite this incredible commitment to the steps and the program and this new set of tools that was now directing my life in a new and amazing way. Truly, Mel, my goal was to repair the wreckage of my past and get right back to where I was, on that track, that respectable track where I could put on the nice suit and people would respect me and I could give them the business card that had the whatever on it and I was driving the right car.

I was motivated by those things. But on the inside, I was having this percolating existential crisis of having chosen this career path where I was jamming a square peg into a round hole and just feeling increasingly disconnected from my life in a way that was making me feel depressed and also medicating that sense of emotional this ease through food and lifestyle choices. So just knocking myself out on fast food, what I call the window diet. You know what the window diet is? No. It's when you drive your car up to a fine dining establishment and roll your window down and they hand you food through your window. That was basically my diet.

That's hard to even wrap your brain around looking at you today. I want to read to you from your mega best seller, Finding Ultra. This is page two. I was a fat out of shape, and very unhealthy man, hurtling into middle age, a depressed, self-destructive person, utterly disconnected from who I was and what I wanted to be. To the outside observer, everything appeared to be perfect. It had been more than eight years since my last drink. And during that time, I'd prepared what was a broken and desperate life, reshaping it into the very model of modern American success. You know what's interesting? You write further. You're such a Un unbelievably beautiful writer. So what was wrong with it? Why did I feel this way? I wasn't just confused. It felt like I was in a freefall. Yet in that precise moment, this is the day before your 40th birthday, I was overcome with a profound knowledge, not just that I needed to change, but that I was willing to change. Moments like these were not to be squandered. They were to be respected and seized at all costs, for they just didn't come around that often, if ever.

And you're talking about this moment where you're literally hauling your 208-pound body up a flight of stairs and you're out of breath. Can you put us at that Yes.

So it was a moment in time in which this existential crisis that I was having about what am I doing with my life collided with a health scare. So I wasn't morbidly obese, but I was about 50 pounds overweight for my frame, like heavy for my frame. But these two things collided with each other on a late evening when I had arrived home after a very long day at work and was just walking up a simple flight of stairs to my bedroom. And I was seized by this moment, halfway up the flight, where I had tightness in my chest and I was out of breath. And it was a scary moment. That made me realize that I was having another big moment. I had made that decision that fateful morning when I woke up and suddenly had the willingness to get sober and went to that treatment center. And I had such a deep connection with how vast my life had changed as a result of that decision in that one moment. And there's an emotional feeling that when I think about it, that I can feel inside of me. And so when I was on that staircase, I had the presence of mind somehow to realize, oh, it's happening again.

It feels feels the same as that other moment. And because I had that experience of my life changing so drastically as a result of a single decision, basically, I felt like I needed to do it again. I was like, this is a brief moment of time, a fleeting moment of time in which willingness has descended upon me. Not only is my life going sideways, suddenly I have this sudden superpower of wanting to do something about it that I know is going to evaporate immediately Immediately unless I take an action upon it. And I thought, what can I do? I can't go to rehab for this. But maybe I can create a rehab for my life, a self-designed rehab. And that's what I did. The next day, I basically was like, I'm changing my diet. I'm prone to extremes, and I needed to do something extreme that would feel like what it felt like when I detoxed from drugs and alcohol. So I just did it with food because I needed to have that purge, that suffering, to make it seem like it was significant and hard. I needed to do something that was hard.

I want to ask because you're so lucky that that happened. As I'm listening to you, and I'm sure as you're listening or watching Rich right now, you're reflecting on the fact that you've probably had a thousand moments where you're like, I need to give up vaping. I got to put the phone down. I got to do something about my health. I got to stop spending money. I get serious about this thing. Where you have that moment that does swell up inside you. And I do think truly that when that happens, there is an earnest desire in that statement when you recognize, okay, how I'm doing life or finances or it's just not working. Is there any insight that you can give us, Rich, about you had willingness open up and then you combined it with like, all right, I'm going in. But what can we mere mortals do? For mortals, for the person that's like, This is resonating, damn it, when is the lightning striking at the top of the stairs for me? And willingness shows up. Is there something that you found?

First of all, these moments that I've experienced, I think that we're all visited by them. So the first thing is to develop a presence of mind or just an awareness so that you're attuned to it when they arrive and you make a promise to yourself in advance that next time I feel that like I'm going to take an action on it rather than let it pass. I love that. Or commiserate. I love that. Because here's the thing, and I'm sure you will agree, Mel, change is an action-based affair. You cannot make a change by ruminating in your mind. And I have a tool that I think will be helpful for this. And that tool is a phrase, and that phrase is, Mood follows action. When we are in those moments where we think, Yeah, I need to stop vaping, or I need to stop going on Tinder, or whatever it is, we let those moments pass without doing anything about it. In truth, it is behavior first, thoughts, feelings, and emotions follow. So the easiest example is, I don't want to go to the gym. I'll go to the gym when I'm motivated, when I feel better, when I feel energetic.

But when you go to the gym and you realize you feel energetic afterwards. So instead of waiting for the feeling to inspire the action, take the action and enjoy the feeling as a consequence of having undertaken it.

I want to make sure that as you're listening or watching that you got the concrete steps Rich just gave you. So number one, the next time that, I got to quit vaping. I got to stop buying stuff online. I got to stop running toward walking red flags when it comes to relationships. That right there is the invitation. That's the moment that you're talking about because you just woke up and you recognized that you have a choice in this matter, that there's some song within you that has yet to be done. Second thing that you said is you could actually say to yourself, the next time I have that thought, I am going to take an action. And the third thing that you said that is a tool is One of the cues you could give yourself is mood follows action. So what action am I going to take the next time this thing happens? And that simple little formula, notice, make a promise, and know what the action is going to be, that basically opens up the possibility for the willingness to take the action.

Yeah, that's an amazing summary. The only addition I would make to that is to layer it with a sense of immediacy. Because these are sliding door moments. And if you say to yourself- The next time. Aha, a moment, I need to act. Okay, tomorrow morning when I wake up, I'm going to do that. You've already lost the plot.

Rich, I am just so happy you're here. I can't wait to keep digging into the story. And more importantly, the takeaways and the tools that the person listening can apply to their own life. Let's take a quick pause so we can hear a word from our sponsors. And stay with me because I'm going to be right back waiting for you after this break with more from The Amazing Rich Roll. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. Today, you and I are with the one and only Rich Roll. We're talking about how you can change your life at any age. So you're at the top of the stairs, dude. You have a moment, you recognize it. Mood follows action. You commit to like, boom, I'm going all in on this. This part of the story of your life is like a movie, dude. You go all in. What did you do?

The first thing that I did was change my relationship with food. And it didn't happen overnight. I did a seven-day juice cleanse. That was the detox part.

That sounds extreme.

It was extreme, but I like the extreme.

Is it changed or interrupted your relationship with food? Because change my relationship with food sounds like something that a 20-something The influencer would say.

But the reason I do that now is because I know that most people are not like me. I have to go all in. I'm extreme, but that doesn't work for a lot of people. But yeah, I did the juice cleanses and I experimented with all these diets and ultimately found an entirely plant-based diet, 100% plant-based diet, to be the thing that worked for me. It really revitalized me in a meaningful way. And the byproduct of that is that I suddenly I had this resurgence of energy and vitality that I hadn't experienced since I was a teenager because I'd cleaned up my lifestyle habits and my diet, and suddenly had the urge for the very first time in a long time to exercise and take care of myself because one act of self-esteem begets another. Self-esteem is a product of performing esteemable acts, not only on behalf of others, but on behalf of yourself. When you do something in the interest of your own self-care, suddenly that gives birth to an interest in wanting to do more of that. And it's this domino cascade effect that I was starting to experience. And the truth of the matter is that I was able to lose weight very quickly, and I was able to go from somebody who was completely sedentary to quite fit in a short period of time.

But the real gift of that was that it was starting to not only connect me to my physical self, But it was giving me a path to recapturing joy. Like by thinking about what are the things that really make me happy or made me happy as a kid. And it took me all the way back to what was it like when you were underwater and in that pool or you could feel the sun on your shoulders, like very basic primal things. And I just thought, I want more of that in my life. I need that in my life. That's what made me happy. I'm not as happy as I could be right now. And so I'm just going to... I don't care what anyone says or how interferes with other areas of my life. I am going to explore that for myself as an act of self-love, honestly. And there's a whole athletic competitive athlete story that blossoms from that. But the truth of the matter is that it was never really about that. It's always been this spiritual journey to find my authentic voice and to heal that wound in my soul and to fill that unfillable hole with something divine that would make me feel at ease with myself and in the world.

That is so beautiful. The image of finding these just moments of joy, whether it's the sun on your shoulders or what it feels like to be outside moving your body or being back in a pool, something that made you really happy be as a child. It is so obvious that when you paint the picture, that moving toward those things, of course, would bring something alive. And yet we allow ourselves to be funneled away from them and end up in places where we're needing to distract and numb ourselves because where we've ended up is devoid of those things.

Yeah, and confused and hypnotized by the shiny object around the bend that's going to solve that for us when we have the answer all along, which is when you reflect back on your happiest moments, you're probably surrounded by people you care about doing something you really enjoy.

Yes, most likely outside. You know what I'm saying? Well, you not only started Running, dude. I also think your story is so amazing because within two years of nearly having your chest caving in and you're 50 pounds overweight, you You earn a top 10 finish in a three-day, 320-mile race. And you're doing this in your 40s, and you don't stop from there. You go into ultra-marathoning called the Fittest Man Alive. I mean, Rich, it's un... I think at some point, I held up a cover of you to my poor husband, Chris, and said, Could you please look more like this guy? This guy looks great in his 40s. What are you doing, chump? I realized I wasn't really motivating him, but- Well, What I had to do to look that way, though, is insane. I'm sure. I'm sure because you're an intense guy. But one of the things that I do find fascinating about you, and you have an award-winning and world-renowned and wildly popular podcast. It's one of the few podcasts I listen to. I've heard you say not only on your podcast, I've read it in your work, that really, if you're lost or stuck, simply Really focusing, if you don't know what else to focus on, on your own health is the single most effective thing to do.

Could you talk more about that?

Health is the foundation upon which the rest of your life is built. If your health is not sound, then your mind is not sound. Your energy system is compromised. Everything is downstream of your physical health. I think in our modern, fast-paced world, where none of us have enough time and there's always too much to do and we never accomplish all the things that we set out to every day. It can feel indulgent or like something only privileged people can do to take care of themselves. But I think that no matter what you're lot in life, it's absolutely mission critical to care for yourself first. It's that oxygen mask on you before anyone else because you can't take care of anyone else and unless you take care of yourself first. So it isn't a selfish act to do that. I think it's actually the most selfless thing that you can do because your capacity to serve is a function of how well you're living, how well you're taking care of yourself.

I've also loved when you wrote, I didn't get into ultra-endurance sports to win races, beat others, or stand atop a podium. I got into it because it's the perfect template for self-discovery. What did you discover yourself?

What I learned about myself, I think, is something that is applicable to everybody, which is how we began this conversation. We are all so much more capable than we allow ourselves to believe. When I was 43 years old, I was the top American finisher of this double Ironman race, this three-day, 320-mile circumnavigation of the big island of Hawaii. The following year, I did Five iron distance triathlons on all five islands of Hawaii consecutively in a six-day period. I would have never dreamed in a million years that I would have been capable of doing something like that. I think that whoever you are, you don't have to be an endurance athlete. The point is that when we choose to invest in our health and our well-being, and we begin to attune ourselves to our own intuition and allow ourselves to be led by it rather than be funneled by social constructs and constraints, we're giving birth to that song, to that voice that can lead us in a direction we can't possibly imagine. Because the idea that I'm sitting here today talking to you when I reflect upon where I was not that long ago is shockingly surreal.

And it's only because I made a commitment to honor myself in an authentic way, and I followed up that commitment and walked through very difficult times where that commitment to myself has been tested. But I've emerged out of it with a message, and that message is that it is worth it. I think that we all have some version of that within ourselves. The point is to figure out what that thing is that gets you out of bed in the morning, that you excited, and to respect it and honor it by nourishing it. So it's not about quitting your job or any of these kinds of things. It's just about, how can you be more of who you actually are?

Rich, you just talked about being led by intention rather than funneled. And part of your story is really about figuring out how to let purpose and intention And I would even... The word that keeps coming up around you, and I know you may bristle when I say this, but is joy. There was something that happened for me as your friend when you talked about the light on your shoulders. You said, and it's somebody who knows you, the willingness to suffer. You said a bunch of words at the beginning of our conversation. You kept using the word violent. We're very violent with ourself. The self-abuse, this willingness that you had to just endure pain and suffering. And there's this beauty in the realization of just allowing the sun to hit your shoulders. This willingness to allow joy to come into your life.

That it doesn't have to be about suffering. And it can be as simple and as easy as that, which is still a lesson I'm trying to learn.

I think that's why it's coming up for me. That that might be something that your next book should be about.

Well, I'm in the middle of writing this book, and I'm also in this period of transition or dismantling or transformation right now because I just had a major back surgery, and it's forcing me to stop and slow down. And that has prevented me from being able to outpace whatever is making uncomfortable by running away from it and distracting myself in work or whatever. I have to sit with myself in the way that I had to be on that bike for that many hours. And I'm trying to look at it for the opportunity that it's presenting me. It is a knock from the universe. And what is the message that I'm supposed to hear right now? And I think what the message is, is that good job with the suffering, dude. It took you pretty far, but now it's not your friend so much. It's getting in the way of what life is really about, which is your connection with other people. There's no amount of external validation. I'm already validated by the public in a way that it's like, I don't deserve this. I get it walking down the street in airports and like that.

So I'm well aware that chasing more of it isn't going to make me feel any better. You know what I mean? But what What happens when you let go of that and you're like, okay, dude, now I'm just here. And what the universe is trying to tell me is that there is no race. And disabusing myself of that paradigm, I think, is the lesson that I'm trying to learn right now. And I had to have my body filet open on both sides in order to be ready to hear it.

You actually mean that? That's not like they had to cut you from the front and the back in order to do this spine surgery.

Yeah, it's spinal fusion surgery 47 days ago.

What's interesting about where you're at now, Rich, is that a lot of people would be shocked to know, and a lot of people probably don't know, that even as you were starting your podcast and you got your first book deal, and so now you are turning your life in a different direction, you are making things happen, you're starting to follow your purpose. On the outside, it looks like this is... So again, I'm saying reinvention, here we go again. You are now aligning with purpose and intention. You are trusting and changing and the willingness to change. You are starting a podcast, you're about to write a book, you get an advance, and you're so in trouble financially, you cannot pay to have the garbage picked up. And this is so related... How old were you when this was happening?

45? Yes, this was 2012.

And you've got three kids at this point?

We have 2012. Oh, no, we have four kids.

So you have four kids at this point. You can't pay to have the garbage picked up. You are starting. You've got an advance on the book. You've got the podcast starting up. This was not the days where everybody has a... You were the O-G in podcasting. How did you navigate that?

It was a weirdly disorienting time because I I had gotten a lot of media attention from my endurance feats.

Oh, yeah, because you're winning all these races.

I wasn't winning, but I was acquitting myself very well, especially as a man in his mid-forties who was this corporate lawyer who was only eating plants. At that time, people couldn't understand that. And so that attracted a bunch of attention, which led to a lot of press around it, which led to me writing a book that came out, and I got an advance for that. And the day that the book came out, I let my bar membership dues lapse. I was officially cutting myself off from the escape hatch of returning to the law. I was like, I am doing this. I them all in. There was no plan. But there's a line in Finding Ultra, which is, When the heart is pure, the universe will conspire to support you. I believe this to be true. This has played out as true in my life. I've I've seen it played out as true in many other people's lives. But when the book came out and it did its thing in the wake of doing everything I could to push it out, then I'm like, Okay, universe. I think my heart's pretty pure The phone can ring anytime, and it was not ringing.

I wasn't getting asked to give keynote speeches. I wasn't in high demand for anything. There was no money coming in. I wasn't practicing law anymore. And I had a mortgage, and I had four kids. And it was very emasculating. And I was guilt ridden and really battling with my own shame that I had made this incredible error out of selfishness that would irreperably harm the people I cared about most. So it was very confusing. And There were days where we almost didn't have enough money to put food on the table. And it's hard to even talk about. It's embarrassing, Mel, because as a guy who has this world-class education and resources and the like, how come I can't figure this out? What am I doing wrong? I literally thought I was insane. I thought, who do you think you are car. Go back and be a worker among workers. Get over yourself. Get a law firm job. You have mouths to feed young people. You've got to do the right thing here. And in those moments of doubt and fear when, yeah, we didn't have the $80 to pay waste removal, and they took our bins away.

So we would have to put the garbage in our beat-up minivan and drive it to some dumpster behind a grocery store. Our washer and dryer broke, so we would go to the laundermat. It was It was difficult. I wouldn't have made it except for the support of Julie, who was able to see the more fully actualized version of myself when I couldn't. She was able with great strength in the face criticism and judgment by all kinds of people to hold that vision. I would come to her and say, I can't do it anymore. And she's like, The only way through this is forward. We're not going back. We've come too far. I know that you're on the right track. I can see it in you, and there is something here, and we have to follow it through. I don't know anyone else who would have done that. And another thing that she said to me then that I think is really powerful is when you're up against it financially, there's a clarity. It really forces you to confront your attachment to the material world as it's being pulled out from underneath you. She would say, Just because they're taking these things away doesn't mean that they're entitled to rob me of my humanity.

That's mine. And so they don't get that piece. And so she was able to engage with all of this with an incredible degree of equanimity. There was a time when we were having a car repossessed. We knew it was going to get repossessed. I hadn't paid the lease on it. I don't know how long. So the repo guy comes, shows up in the front yard, and Julie goes out to greet him. And they He's stiffen up like, Okay, here it comes. And she goes, Hey, how's it going? Like, What's your name? You're here for the car, right? He's like, Yeah. She's like, Cool. Do you need to use a bathroom? Do you want anything to drink? Are you hungry? Come on in. Just greeted him with compassion and this welcoming energy. And then she goes, okay, and she gets the keys or whatever and just says, here you go. I hope you have a great day. And the guy was baffled. This is not the normal experience that someone like this is having in their job. And she's like, yeah, he doesn't get to determine my dignity. He doesn't get that piece. And I think there's so much power in that.

And we give these abstract externalities, our credit score, our credit card balance, our bank accounts, our mortgages, and our IRAs, and all these things, such an outweighed value in terms of how we think about ourselves and value who we really are. And for her to model that, I think was incredibly inspirational and gave me the strength that I needed to continue on this path.

Well, it's a very powerful intangible story that illustrates that the outside world and all the stuff doesn't define your worth or your humanity, how you- Unless you allow it to. Correct. But when you take ownership of it and you operate with a level of dignity and self-worth, even under really difficult circumstances like that, you stay in control of it.

Really powerful. That's empowering. You do have agency over how you comport yourself in those situations.

You've talked a lot about these moments where the desire to change meets a moment of willingness. And what I'm going to say is that the fact that you are listening and that you're watching and you've listened and watched all the way to this point, to me, is evidence of a desire to change. And I personally think that if you are really willing to accept the gift that Rich has shown up and given you, that could be that willingness that has hit you multiple times in your life, Rich. That there's clearly a desire if you've listened this long. And I do believe that there's a reason why you've listened this long or that you've watched this long. And I'm going to say you're the manifestation of that willingness that you've been hoping would appear, and now it's here. And it's about the action that you take next in that willingness. Based on everything that you've poured into us and shared, Rich, if the person were to just do one thing, what would the one thing after spending all this time with us be that you would recommend as most important?

First of all, make a decision to consider this a line in the sand moment. You are being visited with a moment in time in which willingness has brought you this far into the conversation. So the one thing that you can do is identify that single contrary action that you can take, the thing that you have promised yourself a thousand times that you were going to do or one day you were going to do. And it can be very small. It only has to be in opposition to the way you have always done that thing that is making you unhappy or leading your life in a negative direction. Because even the most unbelievable personal transformations are a function of tiny actions just like that, repeated relentlessly and consistently over a sustained period of time.

Rich Roll, what are your parting words?

I guess my parting words would be, no matter the circumstances of your life, whatever is holding you back or keeping you stuck can be overcome. And that you deserve to be liberated from the things that are hijacking your life. And that a life that is joyous, happy, and free, and infused with love, meaning purpose, satisfaction, is not only possible, but available to you if you're willing to take actions to work towards it.

Rich Roll, I am so glad the sun has hit your shoulders and that you have landed in Boston here with us. I love you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

I love you back. This has been great. It's a real honor to be here. I just love celebrating your full expression And as you said at the outset, we've known each other for a long time. And so I've had the privilege of seeing your trajectory in the ups and the downs and the struggles and the depth with which you're able to connect with other human beings in a meaningful way to move them in a positive direction is truly inspiring. Like, you're a gift. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for telling me that. I can hear it. And I just I just want to say I love you, too. I love you for finding the time to listen to something that could help you create a different version of who you are at whatever age you are, wherever you are in your life right now. There is no doubt that based on what Rich shared with you today, that you now have the tools and the steps that you can take and hopefully the willingness to accept the gift of this moment and take the action that turns your life in a new direction. And I really hope you do. All righty, I'll see in the very next episode. I'll be waiting to welcome you in the moment you hit play. I'll see you there. All right, here we go. You can literally order books, dude, for yourself studio based on the color pattern you want.

I think that we all to one degree or another feel... Let me start over. You got the beard, dude. Let me paint the picture. Okay. I imagine the 10, 12-year-old version of me, giant thick Coke bottle glasses. Not only that, a patch on one eye because I have a weak left eye that wanders.

So they literally cover it?

Do you remember in the '70s? Yeah, they put a patch on it. It was like, they put a patch on your strong eye, and the idea is it will strengthen your weak eye. And then on top of that, I had the headgear orthodontia with the wires coming out of the mouth and the strap behind your back. So I was not a vision for you, Mel. Hardly.

I had a Dorothy Hamel haircut and buck teeth, so you might have been just my type, Rich. I'm so proud of how you showed up today. So proud.

I love you. I love you back. This has been great.

Rich Roll, my son. Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the Lawyers Write, and What I need to Read to You. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. Serious XM Podcasts.