The Rich Roll Podcast

Gracing us with his beautiful presence for a third appearance on the show, my guest today is none other than the legendary ultra-marathon man himself. For those who missed RRP 115 and/or RRP 259, Dean Karnazes is an internationally recognized endurance athlete, New York Times bestselling author, and philanthropist globally lauded for his preternatural ability to push his body and mind to limits inconceivable to mere mortals. Among his many palmerès, Dean has: * Run 135 miles across Death Valley in 120+ degree temperatures several times; * Run for 350 continuous miles, foregoing sleep for three nights; * Run a marathon to the South Pole in negative 40 degrees. * Run a 200-mile relay race solo, racing alongside teams of twelve — on ten different occasions; and * Run 50 marathons, in all 50 U.S. states, in 50 consecutive days, finishing with the New York City Marathon, which he ran in three hours flat In addition to his many feats of mind-bending athletic prowess, Dean's first book, Ultramarathon Man not only

It’s one thing to be an artist. But to become a successful creative — revered for your art — is quite another thing altogether. Even more rare are the few who deftly navigate the vicissitudes of an acclaimed artistic career (or any career for that matter), with a highly conscious, devotional approach. Musicians Rodrigo Sánchez and Gabriela Quintero – popularly known as the Mexican acoustic rock guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela — are not only incredible masters of their craft, they fully embody this ethos. It's a sensibility that has carried them from obscurity in Mexico. To busking on Grafton Street in Dublin. And ultimately to playing premier sold out venues all across the globe. Along the way, Rod & Gab have performed at the White House for the Obamas. They've collaborated on film scores with world renowned composers like Hans Zimmer. And lent their talents to television shows like Breaking Bad — all while staying true to themselves and their utterly unique Metallica meets Flamenco artistic sensibility. For t

One day not long ago, I awoke to a bright orange book ubiquitously displayed everywhere I looked. Provocatively titled The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, today's guest birthed a publishing sensation, custom tailored for click-bait embrace. The title also made the book easy to dismiss. In fact, freely admit to downright refusing to read it. But it just would not go away. Not only did it top the New York Times bestseller list, the book stayed there. 6 million plus copies later, it still rests at #4 — a full 149 weeks since its publication. So who is this Mark Manson guy? Realizing that my reflexive reaction was perhaps misplaced, I finally relented. And was pleasantly surprised by what I discovered. To be sure, the book is both contrarian and confrontational. Chock-a-block with f-bombs. But it's also surprisingly refreshing, upending the tired tropes of self-help with an intractable glee. Grappling with real issues, I relished Mark's unique voice — depth meets grit with an infectious philosophical sensibility

Today's guest is lauded for her grit. And a preternatural ability to suffer. Her name is Amelia Boone. And she is the most dominant & decorated female in the history of OCR (obstacle course racing). Over the course of her storied athletic career, Amelia has amassed over 50 podiums and 30 victories. She is a Spartan Race World Champion and 3-time World's Toughest Mudder Champion. The ultimate weekend warrior, she’s done all of this while balancing a full time career as a corporate attorney — first at the prestigious Skadden Arps law firm in Chicago and currently at Apple in Silicon Valley. Dubbed ‘The Queen of Pain', it’s a career that’s landed her magazine covers, major publication features, national television gigs, and a legion of adoring fans across the world. But it's also a career that came with pressures that drained the fun out of competition. And a mask that obscured a deeper dysfunction lurking beneath the surface. Amidst the celebration of Amelia as an unbreakable champion, prodded for her daily hab

By now, most of you have heard about the Impossible Burger. I imagine many of you have tried it. Arguably the ‘beefiest' plant-based patty, even the most attuned palate has trouble believing it isn't real meat. Now ubiquitous at fine dining establishments and fast food franchises alike, it's a global phenomenon. Today we explore the mission behind the burger with Impossible Foods founder & CEO Pat Brown, the man responsible for upending everything you thought you knew about plant-based meat, on a mission to forge a better environmental future for all. A world-renowned geneticist, Pat is a former Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and Professor of Biochemistry at Stanford University. He is also a founder of Lyrical Foods, maker of Kite Hill artisanal nut milk-based cheeses and a founder of the Public Library of Science (PLOS), a nonprofit publisher that pioneered the open-access business model. Pat was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2002, and is a member of the Institute of Medicine.

I'm ecstatic to share my first live podcast event, recorded at the Los Angeles Wilshire Ebell Theatre on September 27, 2019. For all of us, this podcast is an abstraction. The motivation behind the event was to create a tactile, analog experience for 1,100 people to gather around shared purpose and passion. An opportunity to cultivate community. Raise consciousness. Elevate intimacy. Deepen personal connectivity around our collective humanity — and the important ideas of our time. An unforgettable lifetime moment, the resulting impact exceeded my wildest expectations. I'm still basing in the glow. And deeply grateful for an experience that left me feeling more intimately connected with all of you — and optimistic about the future of our planet. The program opens with the poetic spoken word genius of my friend and two-time podcast guest IN-Q (check out RRP 81 & RRP 118). Named to Oprah Winfrey's SuperSoul 100 list of the world's most influential thought leaders, IN-Q is a National Poetry Slam Champion, multi-p

Conventional wisdom frames creativity as the purview of a certain select few — a rare gift that eludes us mere mortals. This is a lie. We are all born creative. More birthright than blessing, creativity is a practice. A habit not unlike any other skill or discipline. A muscle that can be built and flexed. This week's guest takes the notion one step further, asserting creativity as a biological necessity — a transformative force that resides within us all that when unleashed delivers vitality to everything we do. Chase Jarvis is many things. One of the most influential and award-winning photographers of the last decade, he is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades. Dubbed by Forbes as ‘the photographer everyone wants to work with', Chase has created hundreds of campaigns and commercials for the likes of Nike, Apple, Samsung, Google, and Red Bull. As a photojournalist, Chase contributed to the Pulitzer-Prize winning New York Times story Snow Fall and earned an Emmy nomination for Portrait of a City, his

Addiction is tenacious. We're all craven animals, vulnerable to habits that don't serve us. Whether it’s a constantly checking social media, binge eating, smoking, excessive drinking, most of us fall prey to compulsions we feel powerless to arrest. Why is this? And what can neuroscience teach us about the nature of cravings and how to overcome them? Dr. Jud Brewer has devoted his career to answering these questions. His discoveries just might change your life. A psychiatrist, neuroscientist, thought leader and scientific researcher in the field of habit change and the “science of self-mastery”, Dr. Brewer is the founder of MindSciences and Director of Research and Innovation at the Brown University Mindfulness Center. Formerly, he served as an associate professor in Medicine and Psychiatry at UMass Medical School, an adjunct faculty member at Yale University, and a research affiliate at MIT. Dr. Brewer has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. He has trained U.S.A. Olympic coaches. His

He's best known for popularizing Stoicism — an ancient philosophical yet highly practical operating system he pioneered to mainstream, modern adoption. In his latest turn, Ryan Holiday expands his lens East. In pursuit of shared wisdom across ancient Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Hebrew, Greek, Christian and Epicurean traditions, he discovered one essential truth — that inner peace is essential to a life of purpose, meaning and fulfillment. Ryan calls it stillness — to be steady while the world spins around you. A crucial characteristic of all great leaders, thinkers, artists, athletes and visionaries, it's a practice to transcend the stress of everyday life. An antidote to the distractions of our fast-paced world. And the ultimate path to meaning, contentment, and excellence in a world that needs more of it than ever. For those unfamiliar, Ryan is an autodidact who dropped out of college at 19, maturing into one of the most important thinkers of his generation. Now 32, he is a media strategist, prolific writer an

How do you find your path in the vast shadow cast by one of history's most accomplished and beloved humans? For Laila Ali, the daughter of late global icon and humanitarian Muhammad Ali (the 8th of his 9 children), it wasn't easy. It wasn't always pretty. But over time, she found her voice. Staked her claim in very the ring that propelled her father to god-like status. And transcended that shadow as a multi-faceted talent that honors her father and yet is hers alone. Although she was never an athlete growing up — and didn't take to the pugilistic arts until she was 18 — Laila would become the most successful female in the history of women’s boxing. A 4-time undefeated world champion, she racked up 24 wins, 21 knockouts and zero losses over the course of her storied career. Retirement was just the beginning. Today the mother of two is a fitness & wellness advocate, TV host, home chef, cookbook author, and founder of the Laila Ali Lifestyle Brand. A cultural icon in her own right, Laila currently hosts the Emmy

Newly rebranded from Guru Corner to Guru Multiverse — because after all the infinite has no sharp edges — today marks yet another deep dive with Guru Singh, my treasured friend and favorite wizard of all things mystical. For those newer to the show, imagine a modern-day Gandalf who rocks like Hendrix while dropping pearls of wisdom that beautifully fuse Eastern mysticism with Western pragmatism. A celebrated third-generation Sikh yogi, master spiritual teacher, author, and family man, for the past 40 years Guru Singh has been studying and teaching Kundalini Yoga. He is the author of several books, a powerful lecturer, and behind-the-scenes guide to many a luminary, including Fortune 500 CEOs, athletes, and artists. A peer of rock legends like Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead, Guru Singh is also a talented musician who began his recording career on Warner Bros’ Reprise label in the 1960s. When he isn’t recording tracks with people like Seal, he’s bringing down the house on the daily at Yoga West, his Los Ang

Love. Connection. Pain. Finding the universal in the specific. And beauty in the mundane. This is but a few of the themes explored today with the woman dubbed ‘the voice of her generation' by Oprah magazine and ‘the poet laureate of the ordinary' by HuffPost. Meet Kelly Corrigan. Best known for her insightful, candid takes on the too-often overlooked moments that define our lives, Kelly's writing spills over with warmth, courage, vulnerability and humor — rendering her many books beloved by millions. A Today Show regular, Kelly has authored a stack of New York Times bestsellers including, The Middle Place,Lift, and Glitter and Glue.Tell Me More, her most recent offering, is a deeply personal and very funny story-driven collection of essays on the twelve powerful phrases we use to sustain our relationships and make love and connection possible. Named one of the best books of 2019 by Real Simple and Bustle, Tell Me More is both a high-recommend and the backdrop for today's dive into how we can cultivate more me

Conventional wisdom dictates that mastery demands an early start. Relentless focus at the exclusion of other pursuits. And as many hours of deliberate practice as humanly possible. Be it violin, painting, basketball or boat building, there’s simply no substitute for a life wholly devoted to developing that narrowly defined skill. Hence the “10,000 hour rule” zeitgeist embrace — an edict divined by psychologist Anders Ericcson and made famous by Malcolm Gladwell. But is this actually true? Today’s guest put this theory to the test, researching the world’s top performers across a wide variety of disciplines to discover a most counter-intuitive truth — that early specialization is actually the exception to the rule. It turns out that the most successful among us are those who developed broad interests and skills while everyone else was rushing to specialize. Today we explore why breadth is the ally of depth – not the opposite. And why generalists are the ones most primed to excel. Enter journalist and multiple N

Has it really been a full year since Julie appeared on the podcast? Well that's just not right. So today marks the latest installment in my ongoing series of ponderous mind melds with my wife and in-house spiritual guru, the wise and ethereal Julie Piatt, aka SriMati. Longtime listeners are well acquainted with my better half. For those newer to the show, Julie is many things — the bestselling author of three vegan cookbooks. An accomplished yogi, healer, musician, and mom to four children. The host of the For The Life of Me podcast. And the master of Water Tiger, her online spiritual community where she muses on all matters metaphysical. Julie has a lot to say. And this time it's personal. This conversation opens with a wide-ranging discussion wherein we take stock of our marriage. Discuss the next evolution of our two-decade relationship. And share our collective experiences to explore relationship fulfillment in general. We talk about low moments – my relapse (almost 8 years ago), grief, rebirth, and divo

Let's talk about talking to someone. Personally, I've been in and out of therapy for more than two decades. Over the last couple years, I've been deeply immersed in a weekly therapist-led men's group — intimate game-changing sessions that have helped me work through deep-seated stuff that lives and breathes beyond 12-step. We're only as sick as our secrets. The path to healing and personal growth requires openly sharing our hidden struggles. Bearing our vulnerabilities. And allowing others to identify the blind spots that elude us. My point is that we all need help. And as today's guest will openly admit, even therapists benefit from therapy. A Los Angeles-based psychotherapist, journalist and author, Lori Gottlieb writes the weekly ‘Dear Therapist’ column for The Atlantic. She contributes to several prominent publications including The New York Times. And she recurs as a mental health expert on a variety of national television and radio outlets including, The Today Show, Good Morning America, The CBS Early S

Screens and cubicles. Shoes and chairs. Fluorescent lights and air conditioned offices. Processed foods. Netflix and chill. Disconnecting us from our essential human nature, modern living isn't making us happier. Ironically, it's driving an existential crisis of unprecedented proportions — rendering us more sick, immobile, lonely, depressed, and unfulfilled than ever. It's time to stop. It's time we reconnect with that which is most essential. Nature. Movement. Community. Love. To do that, we must adopt a more naturalistic approach to lifestyle. This week's guest calls it rewilding. Meet Tony Riddle – a natural lifestyle coach and barefoot running enthusiast who has devoted his life to studying what makes us human and how to live naturally in the modern world. Through the adoption of simple practices — many of which defined humanity for millennia — he aids people in living healthier and more connected lives by changing our relationship to ourselves, to others and our personal environments. Putting his life ph

How does a relatively conservative, risk averse person evolve into an unbreakable champion? Someone confident enough to put everything on the line for an audacious dream? This is the story of Gwen Jorgensen — an accountant turned ‘Queen of Triathlon' who walked away from swim-bike-run at the peak of her powers to ply her skills in an entirely new discipline: the marathon. Gwen’s athletic career began as a swimmer, competing at the University of Wisconsin as a walk on before making the switch to track & field, maturing into an NCAA standout and Big 10 Champion. But the end of college marked the end of her athletic ambitions. Declining a professional running career, she opted for civilian life, joining Ernst & Young as a CPA. Eventually, USA Triathlon lured Gwen back to athletics. Within two years, Gwen made her first Olympic team and matured into the sport's dominant force, accumulating 2 Triathlon World Champion titles and 17 ITU World Triathlon Series wins, culminating in gold at the 2016 Games in Rio. After

We craft our identity around story. And that story is comprised of beliefs. But you are not your beliefs. And that story isn't just incomplete, it's generally wrong. The path to self-actualization requires deconstructing that story. And disentangling your beliefs from the truth of your highest self. To do this we must unlearn much of what we reflexively accept as truth. And open ourselves to a more expansive perspective. My guest for this exploration is the Toronto-based, rapper, author and spoken word artist, Kanwer Singh, known broadly as Humble The Poet. Covered in tattoos, a thick beard, and Sikh head wrap, Humble commands attention with his silly smile and warm, inviting presence. A former school teacher turned artist, he challenges conventional wisdom with dynamic live sets that simultaneously entertain while questioning the status quo. Humble shares his distinctive style and point of view on his wildly popular blog. He's been featured on a multitude of media outlets, including CBC's Canada Reads, as we

What is consciousness? How does it arise? And why does it exist? We take ‘experience' for granted. But the very existence of consciousness raises profound questions: Why would any collection of matter in the universe be conscious? How are we able to think about this? And why should we? Our guide for today's philosophic and scientific exploration of these mysteries is Annaka Harris. An editor and consultant for science writers specializing in neuroscience and physics, Annaka is the author of the children's book I Wonder, a collaborator on the Mindful Games Activity Cards, by Susan Kaiser Greenland, and a volunteer mindfulness teacher for the Inner Kids organization. Annaka's work has appeared in The New York Times and all of her guided meditations and lessons for children are available on the Waking Up app, the digital meditation platform created by her husband Sam Harris — the renown author, public intellectual, blogger, and podcast host. Annaka’s latest book — which recently hit the New York Times bestseller

Today's guest is many things. A fiercely independent singer, songwriter and musician. A bestselling author and blogger. A playwright and director. A riveting speaker and a viral TED Talk-er. A crowdfunding mom. An ardent feminist. And a fearless activist. Living and breathing at the cutting edge of expression in all forms, Amanda Palmer is an iconic, bold and sui generis performer constantly innovating what it means to be an artist in the modern age. Getting her start as a busking eight-foot bride statue in Harvard Square, she would go on to form one-half of the inventive, punk cabaret act The Dresden Dolls before launching one of the most successful crowd-funded solo careers in music history. Leaning into her devoted audience to support her seemingly endless fount of creativity, Amanda helped resuscitate the ancient art of artistic patronage, giving us all permission to ask. And more importantly perhaps, the encouragement to receive. Further to this idea, The Art of Asking, Amanda's sensational 2013 TED Talk