Rich Roll on Reinventing Yourself After Rock Bottom

What if hitting rock bottom was the best thing that ever happened to you?

In this raw and inspiring conversation, Rich Roll, a former addict turned world-class endurance athlete, shares how he rebuilt his life from scratch, facing failure, financial ruin, and identity loss to find real purpose.

With brutal honesty, he opens up about his addiction, fatherhood, marriage, legacy, and the heavy cost of chasing approval. If you're feeling stuck, burned out, or unsure what comes next, this conversation just might change how you see your own story.

Timestamps:00:00 Introduction 01:13 Spine Surgery and Recovery03:02 Losing Identity and Facing Stillness05:47 Interviewing Master Interviewers07:17 Life Begins at 40 & Rejecting the Race11:06 How to Know You’re on the Right Track13:42 Performance vs. Presence15:25 Addiction, Achievement, and the Roots of Disconnection19:49 The Midlife Chrysalis at Age 3924:29 The Support of His Wife Julie26:04 Lessons from Rich’s Midlife Chrysalis32:14 From Blog to Writing a Book38:10 Launching the Podcast & Relocating to Hawaii42:27 Gaining Momentum43:50 Financial Struggles and Family Impact48:14 What Makes Rich Roll’s Podcast Different51:58 The Importance of Genuine Curiosity54:25 The Power of Vulnerability in Conversation56:31 Rethinking Success and Slowing Down01:01:46 Legacy, Family, and Showing Up

Learn more about MEA at ⁠https://www.meawisdom.com/

#MidlifeTransformation #RichRoll #SpineSurgeryRecovery #SobrietyJourney #PurposeInMidlife #EnduranceAthlete #AddictionRecovery #MidlifeReinvention #PersonalGrowth #PodcastLife #EmotionalResilience #LifeAfter40 #LegacyWork #AuthenticLiving #ModernElder

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I think that every single one ofus is put on earth for a
purpose, and our job is to figure out what that is.
And I think that answering that question begins with, I think
that we're fed this idea that life is short.
We have many decisions that we can make along this meandering
path of life that we all take. It's important to understand
that life is long. If you're not in the station

(00:22):
that you wanted, there is time and you're not losing some race.
But I did know one thing, which is that a single decision can
change your life. Welcome to the Midlife Chrysalis
podcast with Chip Conley. The midlife chrysalis with Rich
Roll was a dream of mine. The idea that the best
interviewer on the planet might get interviewed by me happened

(00:45):
in early June in LA in front of 400 people.
So this is an episode dedicated to Rich telling his story and
telling it quite poignantly because he before he had his
success with the podcast, which is exceptionally successful.
He had a very challenging time in his career and his life.

(01:08):
So I think you're going to enjoythis one as usual.
I hope it changes your life. We are so lucky.
As many of you know, most of youknow Rich had surgery 5 weeks
ago. A.
Little over three weeks ago. 3 weeks ago.
Had spine surgery, very serious spine surgery and cancelled all

(01:30):
of his podcast recordings this week but he has stayed loyal to
being here, so let's give him a hand.
Happy to be here. Tell us a little bit about the
physical life of Rich role in the last three weeks and what

(01:52):
led to what led to the surgery? Fairly atypical.
I mean, I don't want to bore everyone with, you know, the
kind of medical problems of the aging man.
But you know, I've had, I've hada lower back issue for many,
many years. I've struggled with lower back
pain for about 10 years. I have a condition called
spondylolisthesis and I had basically wandered down every

(02:15):
dark alleyway of alternative health therapy and modality over
over the last several years trying to resolve this short of
surgery. But my condition was one in
which it was going to only continue to progress unless I
underwent spinal fusion surgery.So I finally bit the bullet and
did it 3 weeks ago. It's a pretty extensive
procedure. They go in the front and the

(02:36):
back. I've got like, you know, they
carved out my disk and they put pins and rods and all kinds of
stuff. I definitely underestimated the
toll that it would take on me. I'm relatively pain free at this
point, but I get tired really easily and I just underestimated
kind of like that, that aspect of it.
But there was no way I was goingto cancel this.
I feel good. I'm happy to be here.

(02:57):
Anything for Chip. So yeah.
Thank you, Winar. So let's explore that a little
bit further. Just the like the physical body
and the fact that as we get older it it starts to diminish
in certain ways. You've done an amazing job of
taking care of your body. What's been the psychological

(03:21):
and emotional side of the last three weeks, realizing that you
were not as ambulatory as you normally are.
And is this sort of a little window into the future?
In many ways, yes, it's been challenging, but also this
beautiful opportunity. It's forced me to confront my

(03:43):
attachment to this identity thatI, that I, that I have
personally and kind of publicly as this ultra endurance athlete.
And when you say like, oh, you've taken good care of your
body, like I would challenge that a little bit.
Like, I think I've, I've pushed my body to extremes and negative
ways and in positive ways. And, you know, balance has
always been something elusive. So I've been pretty hard on my

(04:05):
chassis for a long time. But I've always also prided
myself on my will and my capacity to work hard and to,
you know, suffer through difficult things.
And that has been an engine thathas served me well in certain
aspects of my life, certainly externally, but internally, I

(04:29):
think it's a a declining value proposition.
And all of the transformations that I've had in my life have
been situations in which I was sort of boxed into a corner and
and forced to confront somethingthat I knew I needed to but
wasn't going to voluntarily. And I think this is another one
of those experiences I've been blessed with this opportunity to

(04:53):
stop and sit with myself and in this moment of forced repose,
confront my inclination to try to outrun whatever makes me
uncomfortable or to chase or to just lose myself in, whether
it's work or anything else as a distraction.
So what happens when there's no distractions and it's just you

(05:15):
and you? And these are opportunities that
modern life doesn't necessarily provide us with.
So I'm trying to look at it through that lens and learn what
I need to learn. And I think this is a, this is
a, you know, this is an evolution that has come at the
right time for myself. And I don't want it to escape

(05:35):
me. I don't want to just distract
myself through it. I want to be available for it.
So I'm intimidated, you know, What's it like to interview one
of the world's best interviewers?
And I, you know, I did this withMaria Shriver a couple months
ago. I did it with Hoda last week
from the Today show for the podcast, doing it with Krista

(05:57):
Tippett later this month, doing it with Rob Bell or this summer,
Brian Chesky. When I, I was, you know, joining
Airbnb as the founder and CEO, Iwas his mentor, but I was also
reporting to this guy 21 years younger than me.
And when he did his first performance review for me, at
the end of the performance review, he said, how was that?

(06:19):
And I said, do you want to, do you want to know as your mentor
or as your director report? Because you know, I but yes, I,
I will look forward to your feedback later.
It's interesting that the 1st guest that you have invited on
your show are interviewers. Like, I don't, I don't know if I
consider myself an interview. I like to think of it, but I

(06:40):
will say that interviewing interviewers is difficult.
Like there's a high bar there. I think the only people that are
harder to interview than interviewers is is athletes very
difficult. But with interviewers, they're
so polished. They're so media savvy.
Like how do you get something authentic out of them?
How do you go beyond like their comfort zone?

(07:01):
How do you, you know, like if that's a, that's a very tricky
puzzle to assemble. Yeah, well, that's my puzzle for
the day. And we had a little a little
taste of that when on the last episode, I, you know, I I sort
of switched the chairs with you a little bit and asked you a few
questions. But let's start with there was
an Instagram viral message that you sent out maybe six or seven

(07:26):
years ago. I don't want to read it for you
said 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 till Iwas 45.
And at 30 I thought my life was over.
And at 52, I know it's just beginning.

(07:47):
And that was six or seven years ago.
And then a few years later in 2022, you wrote.
You advise people to embrace a more patient and long term view.
Double down on the things that make you feel alive.
Give us an update. It's now 2025.
How might you elaborate on the point of view that life was over

(08:11):
at 30, when of course it wasn't,and the idea that you need to
double down on what makes you come alive and are you?
Do you feel like that's how you're living your life today?
Yeah. I mean, I would the addendum
would be that I wouldn't say that my life is just beginning
now. I think my life is in full
swing. I don't feel like I'm at the
starting line. I'm certainly not nearing the

(08:33):
finish line either. But that that kind of like
button that I added, I I would still subscribe to that.
I think that we're fed this ideathat life is short, and in many
ways it is life is short. But I think with that messaging
comes this notion that we're in this race.
And, you know, when we participate in this, in this

(08:56):
sort of this social contract that we've all been fed from as
long as we can remember, there'sa sense that if we're not
meeting these benchmarks, you know, like getting the grades
and getting into the school and then the job and the corporate
ladder. And, you know, all the bells and
whistles that come with that, that we're falling behind and,
and we're hard on ourselves and we beat ourselves up and we

(09:17):
always compare ourselves to whatsomebody else is doing.
And we never stopped to think like, well, this isn't, you
know, like I didn't create this race for myself.
It was sort of imposed on to me.But we don't really deconstruct
that or challenge it. And it took me a long time until
I was in a sufficient amount of existential angst to step
outside of that and evaluate what I really wanted out of my

(09:39):
life. And I think it's important to
understand that life is long. You know, I had Steven
Pressfield on my he said it all right.
He's like everyone says life is short, but like life is actually
long. You know, we have many decisions
that we can make along this meandering path of life that
that that we all take. And I think it's incumbent upon
us to, you know, do our own version of deconstructing the

(10:02):
social circumstances and externalities of our lives and
to delve inward and try to identify what it is that's
meaningful to us. What feels authentic, You know,
there's only one of each of you.Or what makes you feel alive.
And what do you feel like you were put on earth to do and to
breathe expression into that andto be patient with yourselves.

(10:22):
It doesn't need to become a job or a vocation, but to the extent
that you can align yourselves, you know, with some degree of
fidelity with those things that make you feel alive and, you
know, really nurture those things.
I think that sort of tends to lead you in a direction that
will provide you with more meaning and purpose and

(10:43):
direction and a, and a internal compass for making decisions
throughout, throughout your life.
And to understand that life is long and if you're not in the
station that you want to be on, be in you can you can make those
changes and that there is time and you're not losing some race
no matter what marketing you know out there well is trying to

(11:05):
tell you otherwise. How do you know when you're on
the right track? Because you know, if you're
feeling fully alive, do you feellike the work you're doing the
the, the writing you're working on, a new book, the podcast, the
having a network, you know, a podcasting network?
Is it just like a gut level thattells you you are on the right

(11:28):
path? Yeah, I just feel very, very
attuned and aligned. I think that the way you
calibrate that is by getting honest with yourself about where
your intentions and your values are measuring up with your
actions. And where there's dissonance
there, that's where there's space to grow and learn.

(11:49):
And I feel like I'm on a really good path that feels right to me
to the extent that like, you know, people ask me all the
time, like, what's the next thing or what's the big goal or
what it's like I'm good. Like I, I am like living my life
is so far beyond what I ever thought it would be.
And if I don't wake up tomorrow morning, like, you know, job
well done, Like, I feel very content in my life.

(12:11):
And it doesn't need to be different than what it is right
now. And I don't feel a need or a
desire to have to escape it or to distract myself from it.
I think really looking at like the extent to which you're
trying to run away from things is a pretty good measure also of
like where you're at. And I'm somebody who couldn't
trust my decision making or my instincts for a very long time,

(12:34):
like throughout my 20s and early30s.
And a lot of the decisions that I made in sobriety in my 30s led
me astray. And I had to have a lot of Hard
Knocks to kind of come to a place where I was willing to do
the inside work to correct that misalignment.
And during those years in early sobriety and even in later

(12:54):
sobriety, even today, like I checked my decisions with other
people to make sure like I, I don't know, can I trust my, like
I feel now I can feel, I can trust my instincts and my gut,
but often times I think we're not the best measure of whether
we're making decisions in our own best interest.
And I learned very early to relyupon, you know, a wide variety

(13:18):
of mentors and advisors across all swaths of life to, you know,
kind of run my decisions by them.
To check myself, to have an outside objective perspective on
how I was living my life. To not be just caught up in my
own mind. Because my experience is that
more than often, more than not, like will lead me a strike.

(13:41):
One of the things that I, I loveabout you is that you're a very
present person, a conversationalist and someone
who's really good at interviewing better be present.
And it feels like the ultimate metric as we get older might be
moving from performance to presence.
And that feels like maybe part of your and it performance is
easier, easier to measure than present.

(14:03):
All right, would you all agree with that?
Yes. But you know, when someone
you're talking to someone and they're fully there and that's,
you know, having having been interviewed by you 3 times on
your podcast, I have to say thatthat is relative to other
podcasters out there. You're the best, you're the
best. So, and I think these three are

(14:25):
going to go. So if there's any metric, it's
this audience saying, yes, your new, your new, your new ultimate
metric is no longer performance.It's, it's, it's presence.
But let's go back to, you know, your life when you were having
some existential angst in a big way.
So you got sober around 31 ish, 31, yeah.

(14:47):
And by 39 you were 50 lbs overweight, which, yeah, I, we
didn't know each other back then.
We about six years apart, 7-6 orseven years apart for going to
Stanford, playing and swimming in the same swimming pool that I
swam in. I was playing water polo, Rich
was swimming. We knew each other's coaches.
What was going on in your 30s because you know also what was

(15:11):
going on in your 20s that led you to getting sober?
And then what happened in your 30s that actually, in many ways
you'd think when someone gets sober, everything gets better.
Yeah, maybe not. Yeah, yeah, no, that's when the
work begins. You know, the, the drugs and the
alcohol are not the problem. They're, they're, they're the

(15:32):
solution actually to the problem.
And when you when you take thoseaway, you've now removed the
best friend and the reliable like sort of go to for comfort
and solace. And you're stuck with your own
wiring and your emotions. And unless you work a program,
as they call it and really do what I said earlier, this inside

(15:55):
work of excavating what makes you tick and you know what is
malfunctioning, you're not trulysober, right?
And so I guess I would say just to back up, like I grew up in a
very stable household. All my material needs were met.
My parents are still married. So from the outside looking in,
it was fairly idyllic. But the truth of the matter is

(16:17):
that it was a very high performance oriented situation
where the expectations on me were very high to achieve.
And love was really conditional.Like I interpreted love at a
very early age as something thatneeded to be earned through
achievements. And I was able to figure out a

(16:38):
way to kind of play that game and play it well.
But that became so deeply embedded in me that that it
disconnected me from myself. And so I just became like, this
sort of performance machine, like, get the good grades and
get into the good school. And I could like, check all
those boxes. All in the interest of seeking
love and approval from my parents, right?

(17:01):
They can relate to this and never quite getting it right.
Yeah, I'm still chasing it, Chip.
I don't know. And because I was able to do
that, like, and succeed at that to a certain degree, like I'm
like, well, this is the blueprint for life and swimming.
If it teaches you anything, it teaches you how to work hard and
to suffer and discipline and allof these things.

(17:22):
And those tools spilled over into my academics, into other
areas of my life. But not once did I ever turn
inward and think like, well, what is it that I want to do or
be or what, what excites me or what path do you think would
like, you know, light me up? And that was not like part of
the mental equation at all. I just was going on that path.

(17:43):
I was like on, you know, on the,on the hamster wheel.
And so I think there was this incredible dissonance inside of
me that knew I was living in a very inauthentic way that made
me so uncomfortable that when I reached out for a drink and felt
that comfort, I was like, well, this is the solution to this
problem. And, you know, I was wired in a

(18:04):
way to take things to the extreme.
And so alcoholism took me to some very, very dark and
desperate places. There was nothing really
romantic or, or sexy about it. It's really just kind of sad and
lonely and pathetic. But when I got sober, I thought,
well, now this is my opportunityto not only repair all the

(18:26):
wreckage of my past, but to like, really be focused and get
on track to become that person who can, you know, receive love
by achieving things. And, and I wasn't mature enough
to, you know, do the, the heavy lifting and the hard work of
excavating, you know, my interior self to solve that a

(18:46):
problem then. And so I was just very intent on
getting back on track and being this person in the world that
people would look at and, and approve of.
And so I pursued this career in law and was on a partnership
track in a law firm. I hated every day of it, but I
just, I knew how to suffer and Iwould show.
I just figured everyone else wassuffering just as much, even
though I'd look around and I would see these partners and

(19:08):
they were so miserable, you know, like, these people were
the most unhappy people you could ever imagine.
And I'm like, you know, I would think like, is this, like, is
this what I want? Well, I guess this is what I'm
doing. And, you know, maybe in the next
life I'll do something else but that.
But that dissonance just began, began to just, you know,
metastasize and metastasize. And so I, I couldn't use drug,

(19:29):
drugs or alcohol anymore, but I could use food.
And so that became like my go tosource of comfort.
And that's why I gained all thisweight and was sedentary.
And and you know, that just all kind of came to a head shortly
before I turned 30 where I was in a position where I really
needed to kind of confront this for the very first time.
Yeah. So in your late 30s, yeah.

(19:51):
It's almost like you had your midlife crisis or what?
At MEA, we called the midlife chrysalis a few years earlier
than other people because a lot of people find it happens in
their 40s or early 50s. So what was it in that
chrysalis? Well, you know what happened in
that space around age 39 and between 39 and 43, all of a

(20:12):
sudden you were in the best shape you were at.
You know, as you said, you were at your peak athletically at 43
and. You had a book coming out
finding ultra at 44 and yes, butSarah so and we heard this
morning about that. Carrie talked about the four.
Sometimes it takes four or five years to go through a

(20:33):
transition. Well, what you went through one
hell of a transition during thattime.
Talk about what happened around age 40, the midlife chrysalis,
and maybe even what lessons surefrom it.
Yeah, I just, I had this very specific and intense realization
that I just couldn't continue tolive my life the way that I was

(20:55):
living it. And I didn't know what to do or
how to change it. But I did know one thing, which
is that a single decision can change your life because I had
made that decision AT311 morningwhen I finally picked up the
phone and said I'm ready to go to rehab and got sober.
And that had changed my life so dramatically.

(21:17):
The idea that you can be blessedfrom time to time with a sudden
swell of willingness. You know, I'm spending a lot of
time thinking about willingness right now.
And willingness is something that you can't will within
yourself. It's almost like a spiritual
energy that visits you, you know, maybe in your moment of
need, but you can't summon it. You can't compel somebody else

(21:39):
to be willing to do something. Like, if you're not willing to
do something, it's like asking you to want something that you
don't actually want. Willing is different than being
willful. I I.
Think willingness in the contextof of like the like doing
something you ordinarily wouldn't, right?
Like a willingness to make a change, to take an action you

(22:02):
ordinarily wouldn't. And that morning when I was 31
and I suddenly had willingness to do what I knew I needed to do
but hadn't been able to do yet, and it changed my life
dramatically. And then when I was 39 and was
having this experience again, I felt that swell of willingness
and I knew that I needed to takeaction on it quickly, that it

(22:24):
was fleeting and that I wouldn'tremain willing unless I took
some kind of action on it. And I just knew I needed to like
do something quickly, make a decision that would like shift
my energy. And I thought, well, I'm not
going back to rehab. I already did that.
But like, how can I have, how can I create rehab for my life?

(22:45):
You know, And so I thought, well, I'll do this.
Why don't I do like a seven day juice cleanse?
That's sort of like going into detox, right?
Not that I felt like I needed todetox my body.
I needed to do something hard. I needed a pattern interrupt, I
needed Tabla Raza. I need to reboot my operating
system. And so that's just what I chose.
It doesn't even really matter what that was.
But that one action begat other actions.

(23:09):
And, and over time, I developed some momentum, but the primary
decision behind it was I don't want to live my life based on
other people's rules anymore. I need to figure out my own
rules. And the main rule was like, I
need to do, I need to like recapture what gave me joy as a
young person. Like what, when was the last
time that I was truly happy and what was I doing?

(23:31):
And that's what kind of led me back into fitness and taking
care of myself just because I enjoyed it as a young person.
I just loved jumping into a poolon a warm sunny day or feeling
the sun on my shoulders on a, ona, on a trail or something like
that. And I just, I'm just going to
start doing that because I want to honor myself.
And, and also there's something about when you're underwater or

(23:52):
you're alone on a trail and you're by yourself.
Like I had all these confusing thoughts that I needed to make
sense of and I needed space in order to do that.
So that's really how it began. Like the ultra endurance feats
and the, all the stuff that followed from that.
Those weren't goals I had. No, I, I didn't have any designs
on, on on becoming a competitiveathlete in my 40s.

(24:14):
It was just sort of the manifestation of this commitment
to myself and trying to find ways of recapturing joy and
doing the things that, you know,would engender more of that in
my life. I'm just so curious, were you
doing this by yourself? Was Julie your wife by your

(24:35):
side? You know, good to go from 50 lbs
overweight and not happy with your life to this place where
you were going to, you know, be an ultra endurance athlete.
You're going to leave your job along the way.
Julie was there 100% for me the entire time.
Like I had an insane support system.

(24:59):
Very unique and unusual to, to have that kind of partnership
where she's like, I see what you're doing and I'm, I'm here
for it as opposed to like, what is wrong with you?
You know, like get back at work.I didn't quit my job.
I at this point, I had left big corporate law life and I had
like my own practice. I had more control over my time.

(25:21):
So I had the, the liberty to be able to make those kinds of
decisions. But she was, she was with me
every step of the way and most importantly, during moments of
extreme doubt where I thought I was going insane and she would
be like, no, you're doing exactly what you're supposed to
be doing, which was just an incredible gift that I, that I
don't take lightly. So people think of it as this,

(25:45):
this sort of health and Wellnessor athletic odyssey that I went
on. But it was really, it was really
a spiritual journey. Like I was trying to understand
myself and doing it with some tools but not all the tools like
figuring out as I went. And what did you figure out on
this spiritual journey in terms of maybe more specifically, if
you were to go back now almost 20 years and look at the key

(26:09):
lessons you learned during that midlife chrysalis, late 30s into
early 40s. What are some of those lessons
that are are serving you, have served you and and LED to you
being wiser as a result? I think that every single one of
us is put on earth for a purpose, and our job is to

(26:30):
figure out what that is. And I think that answering that
question begins with, like I keep saying, like looking inward
and, and, and, and trying to figure out what, what wakes you
up in the morning? What gets you excited?
What feels honest and integral to you as an individual and, and
trying to breathe life into that?

(26:50):
Like we're all unique, original creatures.
And, well, not everybody is going to be able to be Steph
Curry or Tom Brady or, you know,Michelangelo.
Like, I think we all have value in our original voice.
And I think it's incumbent upon us to, to, to bring voice to

(27:10):
that voice. And so that was my process.
And I had to overcome all this baggage of like, I'm, I'm
betraying my education or I'm supposed to be this or all the
external messaging that that creates fear or risk aversion.
And I've realized in retrospect that the biggest risk was taking

(27:32):
the safe route because I risked my, you know, entire sense of
self in the process of doing that.
And by honoring myself and giving myself permission to like
be who I am instead of a people pleasing, masquerading puppet
version of who I am, who shows up and tries to, you know,

(27:54):
pretend he is the whoever, you know, these he thinks these
people want him to be with such a a burden lifted, you know,
give myself that permission and to step into that.
And that's not to say that like,you know, is it very different.
It's very difficult. Is that burn still?
Lurking. Yeah, of course.
This is a practice. Yeah, this is a practice.

(28:16):
Chip, what should I wear to these things?
Like, I couldn't tell you the last time I wore this jacket,
but I wanted you to think I was respectable.
Of course. Yeah, this is a practice.
Like I'm. I'm still flawed in all the ways
And you know, it's a very difficult journey at times where
I second guess myself, but I just think like in retrospect,

(28:37):
looking back on all, it's like you look back on your life and
it all makes sense, right? But when you're in the midst of
these chrysalis moments, it's very disorienting.
You don't know what the rules are.
You don't your your compass is spinning like this and you might
be surrounded with friends who are questioning your decisions
and all of that. And I think it takes a lot of
fortitude. And again, like, you know, Julie

(28:59):
was a ballast for me. I had that.
Not everybody has that to kind of anchor me and and, and really
make sure that, you know, I was being being true to this, this
version of myself that I was trying to, you know, give birth
to. I wanted to emerge out of the
chrysalis reborn as a more authentic, you know, version of

(29:20):
myself. And at what point do you think
that you started to feel that was it around 43 when you were
doing some of you were you were actually becoming very
competitive? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of
insanity around that time as well because like, we didn't
have any money and we were like,couldn't pay our bills.
But then I would go do these races, like on paper, like none
of it made sense. And there were a lot.

(29:41):
We had like, a lot of people in our community who were, you
know, like, what are you doing? How about bond there, I mean.
How did I mean? How did your?
They were they. It was very difficult for them.
Yeah, it. Was your father's an attorney?
I mean, OK, let's let's go there.
OK, let's go there. My my relationship with my dad
now is fantastic. Like he's come, he's come
around, but it wasn't always that way.

(30:02):
Yeah, my dad has to. Maybe they're conspiring.
Very, very, very, very difficultfor him.
And like, my mother has dementianow, so.
But she's never understood. And like she would, I mean, even
as recent as a couple years ago,she's like, you can still go to
medical school, you know? Yeah, I'm a, you know, it's

(30:24):
painful. But like, in many ways like, I'm
a great disappointment. I wanted to ask about Dad
because you said people who thought you were a little bit
crazy during that time, which isyou, you getting into the ultra
endurance kind of sports and andgoing out and not not having
money. Oh, you asked me.
You asked me when did I know that I was like on the right
path? Yeah, there is one specific

(30:46):
memory I have. So this is a great, this is a
funny story. So I had done, I can't remember
exactly what year it was, but I'd done some things in the
ultra endurance world because I was plant based.
This is a curious, interesting story to the media.
And so I was getting a bunch of attention and people were
writing about this and then and I was like, this is back in the
blogging days. Like I was blogging, but I

(31:07):
didn't think anyone was reading it.
And then I got an e-mail from Sanjay Gupta's producer who
said, like, Sanjay loves your blog.
And I was like, what? He wants to come and, like, do a
piece on you. So Sanjay Gupta came to our
house and like, we filmed the whole thing.
But at the time, we were so broke and like one month we

(31:32):
could pay our utilities and another month we could.
It was like it was a very unstable like financial
situation. And at that, at that moment in
time, and I remember he was coming over and, and Julie was
going to make him some food and they were going to film some
stuff. And she went to to like turn the
burner on, you know, and she waslike, I don't know if the gas is
going to like, it might not turnon.

(31:53):
Like we had that moment of like,we weren't sure, you know,
that's how precarious it was. But anyway, so we, we spend the
afternoon. It was great.
And CNN asked me to write a like, write like A blog post for
cnn.com about like my story. And I'm this is cool, I'll do
this. And it ended up publishing on

(32:15):
the health page. And then it got so much traffic,
they moved it to the CNN homepage and it became like the
most shared story over a 72 hourperiod of time.
And I just got shellacks with thank you.
I got shellacked with emails. Like I just got like hundreds
and hundreds of emails in the wake of that.

(32:36):
And the vast majority of these emails were incredibly
vulnerable, personal accounts ofthese people's, you know, trials
and tribulations, like very heartfelt and meaningful and
just one after another. And it moved me to tears.
And I thought, Oh my God, like, I just, I'm out doing my thing.

(32:57):
And I wasn't doing it for any other reason other than, you
know, to do it for myself. And I realized like, oh, there's
something about whatever I'm doing that that seems to have
meaning for other people. And I was so moved and touched
by that. And even though, like, we
weren't sure the gas burner was going to turn on, like I, I was
like, I'm on a meaningful path. Like, I don't know where this is
going to lead me or how this looks or how I'm ever going to

(33:19):
pay the bills. But there's something, there's
something going on here that that deserves my full attention.
So that was around. A like that must have been 2009
or something probably. So you were what age?
Authority 342. Yeah, yeah.
Did that lead you to wanting to write the book or what what?

(33:40):
What led you to writing the bookand then ultimately creating the
podcast? The book is another interesting
story. We like those.
I I wasn't podcasting. It wasn't like, oh, I'm going to
write a book, you know, like it was.
I didn't set. All of the great things that
have happened in my life are notthe function of having set a
goal and working to achieve it or whiteboarding it or visioning

(34:00):
it or manifesting. They are each and every time,
like in sort of an external by product of of just committing to
a path and trying to be of service to other people.
That's the truth. And so with respect to the book,
I hadn't thought about writing abook.

(34:21):
I couldn't imagine why anyone would, you know, like there
wasn't you. What, what would that book even
be? But there was a little article
that was written about me in theStanford Alumni magazine that
was probably around the same time, 2009.
And only one sentence of it likementioned that that that I was
sober. And it was a small little
article. And I get an e-mail in the

(34:46):
aftermath of that coming out from a guy who swam at Stanford,
who was probably your year around your time, who will
remain anonymous. Yeah.
No, I'm not going to. I'm not going to name this
person. He was the CEO of a prominent,
prominent company at the time and he had just gotten out of

(35:10):
Hazleton brand new sober. His board did not know that he
was in the early throes of sobriety and he was on the
precipice of IP owing his company and he was terrified.
He was terrified that his board was going to find out.
He's like, he was so new to sobriety and he just saw that

(35:31):
article and he's like, I need totalk to this guy.
And I just became like, I wasn'ta sponsor, but like we talked,
you know, like I was like available to him.
I was just being of service to this guy and in a, in a kind of
sober way. This is what we learned in 12
step. Like my primary purpose is to
stay sober and help another alcoholic achieve sobriety.
So from the pureness of my heart, that's all I was doing.

(35:52):
And so we would chat and we would e-mail and then at some
point he's like, you know, like,have you ever thought about
writing, writing a book? And I was like, not really, but
I don't know, you know, And he'slike, well, I own this this
property in San Francisco. And I and and my renter is a
book agent and she represents a Dean Carnazza's.

(36:15):
It's done all his books. And like, you should meet her,
like you should really talk to her.
And I was like, OK. And so he put me in touch with
this woman. I spoke to her and then, you
know, she she was she was not that enthusiastic.
She's like, well, it's really hard.
Like what's the real story here?But I'll tell you what, like if
you maybe you know, like here are some sample proposed book

(36:36):
proposals and like, why don't you work on a proposal?
And I'm happy to read it. And like was just that little
crack of opportunity. I was like, that's all I needed.
And I needed some I needed to do, you know, like I needed
something. And I was like, this is an
opportunity. So I worked really hard and I
wrote this proposal and she's like, this is great.
Like, wow, this is really good. But you know, it's really hard

(36:57):
out there. You got to thread the need, you
know, she said very negative about the whole thing.
But let me talk to some editors.And she finally set up a phone
call with with a guy called RickHorgan, who was an editor at
Crown. And I got on a phone with him.
I remember I was like outside this mall and there was bad

(37:18):
service and I had to hide behindthis Bush.
And I'm like pitching my book tothis guy.
Anyway, he like bought it right away.
He was like, this is fantastic. And like, that's how the book
came to be. But the point is that I wasn't
trying to get a book made. I was being of service to
somebody and the opportunity, you know, manifested as a result
of of selfless service. And I have 1000 stories like

(37:42):
that, like when you are in a service mindset and you are
listen, I'm no St. like I am theas self obsessed as anyone.
You know, like this is again, islike a practice.
You know, I'm like, you know, I do service like even when I
don't want to because it makes my life better and it's better

(38:04):
for the other person. But that's sort of a huge lesson
that I've learned time and time again.
Which led to the podcast and Julie was your first guest, is
that right? The transition from writing
because the book came out a yearbefore the podcast started.
Is that correct? Was this something that you knew

(38:26):
you wanted to do, or is this something that someone else
suggested to you? No, it was something I wanted to
do. I mean very.
Early in the. Point so so so finding ultra
came out and I think it was May of 2012 and I did everything in
my power to push that book out into the world and when that
chapter kind of concluded we were like broke and like I

(38:48):
didn't I was like there's a linein fighting ultra.
This is like when the when your heart is true, the universe will
conspire to support you. Now I believe this to be true.
It's been true in my life many times over.
And I thought, well, my heart's pretty true.
Like the phone's going to ring. You know, something's going to
happen and nothing was happening.
And it was a very trying time. And oddly, out of the blue,

(39:10):
somebody who had read my book, who was this high net worth guy
owned up, owned a incredible property in Kauai was like, I've
got this amazing place and quiet.
I don't know what to do with it.I don't know why, but I, I think
you, you can help me with it. Will you come out and like we
could get together and figure something out.
Like is this, you know, huge like mango farm that he was

(39:32):
converting into like a public space.
I have no, I don't like you should have called you.
I have no idea. I'll take like I am like, I
don't know why this person wouldthink that I would have anything
valuable to add to this, but I need but he was like kind of
pit, you know, I was like it wasa lifeline.
You know, it was a gift. And so like very quickly, our

(39:52):
whole family relocated to this guy's property.
Inquire where he had a yurt village.
We were living in yurts. I mean, it was.
And how many you had the you hadthree kids.
So we had yeah. And then like our nephew came.
So no, we had four. No, Jaya was born.
So 4 kids and a nephew. Yeah.
And we lived there for three months and.
And I did my best to be helpful to him, but I started to get

(40:16):
island fever. Like I was work, I was trying to
create something, you know, And suddenly here I was in the in
the middle of the Pacific Ocean,I felt very disconnected.
But I had fallen in love with podcasts and I was the only
person that I knew that listenedto them because I was training
for these ultra endurance races.And I had all this time where I
was by myself, like on a bike for 8 hours or whatever.
And I needed something to keep me company.

(40:37):
And, and I discovered podcasts and I had gotten so much
nourishment from them at a time when I didn't know anybody else
who was, who was sort of as enthusiastic about it as I was.
So I'd consumed like thousands of hours of this medium.
And I'd always thought like, oh,you know, maybe I could bring

(40:59):
something interesting to this. And then being on this island
and meeting a creative outlet and feeling disconnected, I was
like, I want to, let's give thisa try.
And nobody was really doing anything all that interesting at
the time and health and well-being.
There was a lot of comedians. There were sports, there was
news. I wasn't like the first person
to start a podcast. And I knew like, there's
something here and it's good. This is going to be bigger.

(41:20):
I could have never imagined it would become as mainstream, a
medium as as it has become. But I knew there was promise
there. And I spent a whole day like
trying to how do you get a podcast on app?
Like, how does this even work? You know, there was like, it's a
little harder than I thought. I think it still is.
Figuring all that out and then just, you know, rolling the dice
and having a conversation with Julie for no other reason than

(41:42):
to have a good time. And I thought that was fun.
Like, let's do it again tomorrow.
It wasn't like launching a podcast.
It was a very different time. And were you, did you have a
regular sequence of them or theyjust sort of happened when they
happened? We recorded it and I like put it
up that day or whatever. There was number order to any of
it. You know, it was really purely
like Hawaii. Yeah.

(42:03):
So my, my sons were musicians and they had brought all this
music equipment. So they had microphones and
cords and things like that. Yeah.
So you start your podcast in Kauai then.
Yeah. OK yeah.
And in a. Warehouse so tip to a new
podcaster. Don't record your podcast in a
warehouse. Yeah, it's.
A little, yeah. The the acoustics aren't good.

(42:24):
No, no, no. Wow.
At what point did it start to show some momentum?
Well, the interesting thing was because because it was a time in
which nobody was clamoring to start podcasts, there was
immediate external validation because it went to like the top
three in the health category on iTunes.

(42:45):
I can't imagine it got more than500 listens or whatever, But
because there was nothing going on there, it was like, wow,
you're at the top of the charts,you know, and there was some
feedback from the people that did listen that found, found it
to be interesting enough and there was it.
So there was some encouragement there that felt really fun and,
and, and interesting. And so I just went from there

(43:06):
like it. We did it for 3-4 years, I think
before the audience size was large enough to even consider
monetization. Like when I said it wasn't even
a business model for it, I neverthought of it as something being
a revenue driver. Like it was nourishing and I
loved it and it was, it was bringing something really

(43:31):
compelling into my life, not financially, but in other ways.
I would have kept doing it had it not made any money.
But it just so happened that it grew to the point where then
that became like a very real thing.
And now it's like this full blown enterprise and I employ
all these people and it's like, you know, it's like a whole
thing. I would have never imagined it
would have take on that. When did you stop doing the
legal work? Because that was high, that was

(43:53):
paying the bills. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I was like sort of slowly sliding out of that while I was
training for the endurance races.
Like I was still technically a lawyer, but I was doing less and
less of it and and bringing almost no money in.
But it wasn't until my when my book published, I was like, I'm
not renewing my bar membership. That was sort of like that, the
hard line that I took. So between then and when the

(44:13):
podcast started actually earningmoney, you were making money
based upon having sponsors as a as a ultra marathon ultra.
I was making no money. I mean, it was, it was rough.
It was rough like we went to when we went to Kauai, we were
within 48 hours of foreclosure on our house.

(44:34):
We'd had two cars repossessed atone point.
It was so bad that we couldn't pay the $80.00 to the waste
removal service and they took away our garbage bins.
Our washer and dryer broke. So we had a lousy, you know,
minivan with a bazillion miles on it.
And we would like go to the laundromat and we would put, you

(44:56):
know, our garbage bags in there and then find bins behind the
grocery store and stuff like that.
It was very like emasculating, quite honestly.
Like there was, there was some like, no, it wasn't.
And you know. Like.
Deep embarrassment and and shamethinking like I'm supposed to
like what does Stanford and likethis is this is and I have kids

(45:17):
and I have responsibilities. So the the challenge of like
pursuing this thing that I I felt so compelled to pursue
against very real world pressures and responsibilities
and expectations. Small children, like our family
went through a lot, you know, and I'm, I'm, you know, it's, it
was not without its cost. I will say that it's, it's not

(45:40):
like, like our boys are 30 and 29 now and they remember and it
was not easy, you know, it was, it was not easy.
And so there's still some work that I have to do around that,
you know, like, was that a selfish pursuit?
Was that the right thing to do? You know, I can come to a place
like this and people clap, but Igo home and I and I see those

(46:00):
boys and, you know, I show up for them every single day.
But I also know that because of the decisions that I made, they
had to endure certain things that had I made different
decisions, they would, they wouldn't have had to.
But. What do you think their lesson
was? I think that because this was a
this was a another midlife chrysalis in some ways, because

(46:22):
it it was a time where you were pursuing the thing you wanted to
do the, the, the athletic, the athleticism.
They're writing the book and nowstarting the podcast, but there
wasn't much external validation that you were on the right path
financially and you had a lot ofresponsibility, family.
So your boys may have gone through a lot then, but then

(46:44):
they also now see you today. And is there a lesson for them?
Yeah, there's lots of lessons. I mean, I think, yeah, there's
what? Well, first I'll say somebody's
been a parent for a long time. So my kids are are are 30/29/21
and then our youngest turns 18 next week.

(47:05):
So I've been parenting for a while for a minute.
And I can tell you that no matter what decision you make,
like they'll let you know later in life why it was the wrong 1,
you know? And like I know that I've
parenting and in in a way that is in opposition to the way that
we all parent in ways that are opposite to the ways in which we
feel our parents didn't show up for us right.

(47:26):
And so, you know, the pendulum probably swings too far in the
other direction. So despite the difficulties in
the hardship, the boys, I think,are old enough to recognize that
that if you want to do something, it's hard, that it's
disabuse them of any entitlement.
And so they appreciate the valueof hard work and they don't take

(47:49):
things for granted. They have a natural disposition
towards gratitude. And our younger girls less so
because they were, one wasn't quite 1 was really young and one
wasn't old enough to really understand what was going on at
that time. But it's challenging because now
I can afford to do things for the younger ones that I couldn't
do for the boys too. So that creates another, you

(48:10):
know, dynamic that is tricky to navigate.
Why are you so successful as a podcaster?
Yes, you were lucky to get in when it was less competitive
than there were a lot of people in your space.
But there, you know, you've beendoing it now for 13 years, I
think maybe. And you are one of the most

(48:30):
respected podcasters out there. What is it that makes a Ritual
podcast different than everything else out there?
There's certainly something to be said for being at the right
place at the right time. Like I knew that I was early and
I recognized that there was a that there was value in that,

(48:52):
that because I was early, I was able to cultivate an audience
before it got crowded. But I think there's a couple
principles that perhaps can helpelucidate that.
One is that I've never been super concerned about growth or
like, you know, trying to like take shortcuts to get attention

(49:17):
or to hijack the subscriber metrics.
I've always just tried to be authentic to who I am and to and
to take that focus and honor thepeople that are already showing
up and making sure that what I'mdelivering is meaningful.
Certainly I've benefited from hard work and consistency.

(49:40):
Like, you know, I just, I've just never not shown up.
The show has been consistent throughout.
And I think one of the things that distinguishes what I do
from maybe some of the other people who do something similar
to me is that I bring a level of, of, of presence and empathy

(50:01):
to the experience. Like I, I do a ton of
preparation and then I let it goand I try to make myself
available for the experience andreally listen.
And I think most people are terrible listeners.
They're just not good listeners.And it's not that I'm perfect at

(50:21):
this, but to make myself truly available and, and lean into my
curiosity and just allow these experiences to be what what they
want to be as has been somethingthat has benefited me.
And I always think about the primary thing when I approach my

(50:43):
interviews is how am I going to emotionally connect with this
person? There's all this information
that they're there to impart andthat I would like them to
impart. But I think that human beings
are storytelling creatures. We learn by story and we learn
better when we feel emotionally connected to the people that are

(51:06):
imparting the information or telling the stories.
And I try to create that experience of emotional
connection by finding a way to emotionally connect with the
guest. So I spent a lot of time
thinking about like, what is, how am I opening this?
Or how am I, how, how are you and I going to how are we
getting In Sync? Because if I can do, if I can
achieve that, then everything flows from there.

(51:26):
If I can't do that, it's not going to be a great experience
and I don't always succeed. But that's, that's kind of how I
think about it and how I approach it.
And perhaps, and I'd like to think, and that plays to my
strengths. Let's like if you're posting a
science podcast that you don't need to do that, right?
It's just like, this is kind of like what I do and how I do it.
Conversation matters. That's something that you say

(51:47):
and what I've been to your studios, it's emblazoned within
the studio. What makes for, I guess you've
sort of answered it, but I want to what I want to dive even
deeper. What makes for a great
conversationalist beyond the empathy, beyond the presence, Is
there, is there a curiosity? Is there a sense that you're
iterative in terms of asking thequestions as opposed to having,

(52:11):
you know, a list that you're supposed to be sticking to?
And maybe tell us an experience you had in a podcast episode
where you had to throw this thing out the fucking window
because the conversation went ina poet direction you had no idea
it was going to go. Yeah, that's a multi part
question. Yes, it is.

(52:34):
Yeah. I mean, genuine curiosity is
really important. So I don't ask anybody to come
on that I'm not already genuinely curious about.
Like I've learned the hard way, like it, I've been in situation
a million people. You got to have this person on.
I'm like, do I, I don't know. And then I'm like, I guess I do
and then I have them on and it'sand it's flat because like, it's
not that the guest is there's anything wrong with the guest.

(52:55):
I'm just not the right person tohave that conversation.
So I have to really feel it. And then I and then, you know,
and then so Curia, you lead withcuriosity, like if that's
genuine, that will take you all kinds of places.
And then we already talked aboutthe the listening in the
presence. But I think the other piece is,

(53:16):
is it has to do with the emotional connection piece,
which is making the person feel safe.
In order to do that, you have todemonstrate some vulnerability.
Like you have to model like vulnerable.
If you expect the guest to be vulnerable, you better be
willing to do do it yourself, right.
So some of that takes place in the, in the banter before the
podcast, but even, you know, on,on the mic, like if I share

(53:39):
something that that might seem like you wouldn't do publicly,
it's signaling to the person like, it's OK, you know, and not
everyone's willing to go there. But when you get the right
person, when you're paying attention and they're going
somewhere and then you, you haveto know when to interject and
when to lean back and let them go.
But when you can kind of pop in at the right moment and say, oh,

(54:00):
wait, let's go back. Tell me more about that,
especially with media trained people like you have to get them
off their game. You know, you got to, you got to
either have to let them exhaust all their talking points 1st and
then you're like, OK, now we canhave the pot or, or you got to
like interject and, you know, and, and catch them off guard
and, and try to get them to go places they they ordinarily

(54:21):
wouldn't. Is there a particular episode?
I'm trying to think. Where it did not go as planned,
but it is one that you really are proud of because you threw
this out and you just said like I am here to be on this journey
with this person right now. And they that that person I'm
interviewing really needs to have this out in the open.

(54:44):
This is the question I didn't. Yeah, I'm trying to think of a
spit. Yeah, like I'm trying to think
of a specific one. I think that comes into play.
I mean, this brings up like modern elder stuff, right?
Like when somebody spins A yarn like you've, you've allowed them
to feel safe and then they tell this story, but I'm not buying

(55:06):
and like I'm not really buying it, you know, and I'm not going
to like I'm not there to embarrass them or to call them
out, but to be like, well, that's interesting.
Like, yeah, I'm not sure. Like if you ever consider it
like, you know, like trying to probe as a, as a, as somebody
who's lived a little bit more life can, you know, to say like,
I don't, it doesn't feel right to me.

(55:27):
That doesn't feel true to me. Are you sure that, you know,
like, that's how I try to like empathetically, like reconfigure
someone's brain around whatever story they've told, been
probably been telling their whole life.
And that tends to trigger an emotional response like, you
know, I like, I like, I've kind of like, I like to make people

(55:47):
cry. I know you do.
And that only happens when they feel safe.
I got Peter Attia to cry on the podcast.
Like, you know, like I like everybody else can talk to him
about all the longevity stuff orwhatever.
And I'm like, let's talk about your parents.
Like, I want to know, you know, about all this pain and the
emotional stuff. And I don't think he's used to

(56:09):
that, right? But but, but when people come to
my show, they kind of know that that's part of the deal and
maybe prepare themselves for that.
I think strategically knowing how to challenge your guest so
they don't feel disrespected is something I've learned to do
over time as well. So you're 58, yes, Yeah.

(56:30):
And you've got your 60s and your70s ahead of you.
And on some level, we've talked about this before, and I think
you've talked about it even on the air.
There's an element of you feel like you're catching up.
You know, you didn't make the kind of money Stanford grads
make in their 20s, thirties and early 40s.
And now, you know, things are going better.

(56:53):
But there's also a sense like, OK, what's next?
And am I? Is this a young man's young
person's game or what? Where do we go with your podcast
network empire and your personality?
How do you think about your 60s and 70s?
And what's your relationship with the word retirement?

(57:15):
Yeah, I don't think about retirement at all, at least not
in any kind of traditional sense.
And to your point, and, you know, it kind of gets to that
viral tweet or whatever. Like I didn't get started until
really late. And and so I feel like now I'm
I'm, I'm finally in my groove and I've got this thing and it's
going really well. I'm like, I don't want it to

(57:36):
stop. And I think there is something
beautiful but also dangerous about that.
Like, while my peers and friendswho are in more traditional
careers are starting to think about next chapters and what
that looks like, like I feel like I'm just, I'm just getting
going. And that's very invigorating.
And, and everyone I work with is, is, is young.
I'm around a lot, a lot of youngpeople and most people interview

(57:59):
are younger than me. And, and the whole medium in
which I'm in is very young, you know, like I'm, I'm way more
online than most people my age and more online savvy than
people, you know, my peers because of just the nature of
what I do. And I think that keeps me young.
The danger part is that I don't want to be in denial of, of
objectively evaluating like what's going on with my mind and

(58:21):
my body physically. And I'm not trying to hide my
age. I have a white beard.
We were talking about this like I, you know, I'm, I'm trying to
embrace a modern elder kind of ethos and aesthetic in, in what
I do and acknowledge that I'm not trying to like hide, you
know, hide my age or pretend that I'm, you know, 28.

(58:42):
And I want to maintain my enthusiasm and my vigor and my
vitality and my vocation for as long as I can.
But, but I also, I'm very cognizant of the costs that I've
paid to kind of have the career that I that I'm in right now.
Like I have let friendships fallby the wayside and I've

(59:02):
sacrificed experiences. And, you know, I get asked to do
pool stuff all the time and go to this place and go to that
place. And, you know, I found myself
saying no to really nourishing opportunities and yes to the
ones that come with a lot of fancy bells and whistles and,
and, you know, kind of all the, the adornment of, of prestige,

(59:25):
right. And, you know, part of me is
like, well, I work hard to get, you know, like I, I want to be
able to go to the Google summer camp or what, you know what I
mean? But but then I say no to like,
Hey, do you want to walk the El Camino?
And it's like, no, I can't be away from work for that long,
even though that would probably be a much more memorable and
nourishing experience. So although you did deal up on
the Camino a little bit with Craig Odd this week.

(59:47):
Yeah, yeah, virtually, you know,you know, But then when Kevin
Kelly emails me and says, OK, let's do it, like, am I going to
say yes or am I going to say no?And so I want to be in a
position I want to adopt. A stance of yes to those types
of experiences. I want to be more connected to
my good friends. I want to have more intimacy and

(01:00:08):
joy and happiness and these things that I've sacrificed to
build this career that I can fall into.
You know, this idea of like, well, that's I don't need all
those things. What I need is to achieve the
next thing. Like I have full blown driver's
dilemma, right? And the irony being like, I get
to have people like Chip and Arthur Brooks and all these

(01:00:28):
experts sit across from me and tell me the truth.
And then it's like, am I practicing this in my own life?
You know what I'm saying? Am I listening to these people?
Yeah. And so so I want to be able to
like, leverage the wisdom that I'm so privileged to receive
from all of these amazing peopleand that I get to share and
actually practice it in my life.I think this, you know, having

(01:00:51):
had this surgery and being forced to stop and really
reflect on those things has beenfantastic in helping me
reprioritize. So I guess with respect to
retirement, what does that look like?
I have no designs on retiring, but I'm also under no delusion
that I can maintain the pace of my career the way that I've been

(01:01:11):
doing it for as long as I've been doing it like I want.
I would love to be able to keep doing it, but I don't need to
put out as many episodes. I want to be able to be like
enthusiastic and excited about being able to explore.
I'm in a privileged position where I can like I want to do
this project or I want to do that project, but to slow down
the pace of all of it and not get caught up in the idea that

(01:01:35):
like I have to do it or if I don't do it, I'm going to fall
behind. Like all of that kind of
strivers dilemma stuff is what I'm really working hard to
transcend. So legacy is such a just like
purpose is sort of a loaded word, so is legacy.
The capital L legacy often is the obituary and small L legacy

(01:02:00):
is the eulogy, what they say about you.
So when you think about your future and obviously part of
your legacy is your children, you know, what is it that how
would you like to be remembered at that point, somewhere out
there in the very long future that you're not here anymore?

(01:02:21):
How would you have liked to havehad an impact?
Legacy is such a loaded word. Like it is legacy is for other
people to decide. Yeah, it's not my business.
Like I think when I get caught up and thinking about like what
is my legacy or what do I want people like it feels very ego
indulgent. It does.
And and so I try to, I try to not think about that kind of
stuff. Think the small.

(01:02:41):
Think the small L legacy then which is small L legacy is not
ego intended, it's impact intended.
And what is the impact? I mean the IT could be the
incremental personal micro. I already know that like, what I
do is meaningful to other people.
And so I don't need that to be on a tombstone or for anybody to

(01:03:04):
say that to me. I'm already on the receiving end
of like too much praise and digital form and that is very
deranging to me so. Why is it deranging?
Because, because, because it's exact, because my ego loves it,
you know what I mean? But then if you go home and you
know, your, your kids are like, where were you all day or

(01:03:25):
whatever, you know, it's like, so like, like small L legacy is
Big L legacy for me. Like, honestly, like I, I would
like to be somebody who, when they dies, a lot of people shows
up, show up at their, at their memorial and, and like
celebrate, celebrate a life and,and, and tell stories that make
people smile, you know, and I, Iwant, I want a great

(01:03:46):
relationship with my wife and mykids and with my friends.
And I want to feel connected to those people and what I do out
in the world and externally. Like, like I already have a good
sense of, of, of what that is. And like I said, like whether it
becomes something bigger or not or whatever, like it's already
done, you know, like I did it. And, and I think if there was

(01:04:07):
anything that, you know, I'd like on a, on a tombstone, it
would just be like, you know, heserved or he showed up, you
know, he gave of himself. Yeah, the beautiful.
I want mine to say he finally was just getting the hang of it.
Yeah. Yeah, I know.
Well, am I getting the hang of it as a conversation?

(01:04:27):
Yeah. Doing OK, all right about that
and this conversation. Thank you.
This conversation has been nutritious and delicious.
Thank you. Let's give a hand and thank you.