The Rich Roll Podcast

I'm really excited to have Robin Arzón back on the show this week. From corporate lawyer to ambassador of sweat and swagger, Robin brings the heat with unique personal style and an unwavering confidence that is matched only by her unlimited vivaciousness. In the event you missed it, I highly recommend going back and listening to our first conversation, RRP #99. You also might want to go back and read (or re-read) the blog post I wrote for that one, because it's kind of awesome. Longtime listeners know Robin is all about story. The power of story. How to properly own your story. How to properly tell your story. The capacity for story to catalyze positive change in others. And the capability we all inherently have to let go of whatever negative story we tell ourselves about ourselves — and instead form an entirely new one. To recap, only three years ago Robin was living a completely different life — toiling away as a corporate lawyer at one of the world’s most prestigious law firms. But a near-death experience

Right now this spinning land mass we call Earth is host to over 7 billion hungry human mouths to feed. Our current set up for handling this relentless, growing need isn't just problematic, it's broken, outdated technology that is making us sick and decimating the planet at an unfathomable rate. If we want to preserve a vibrant planet for future generations, it is imperative we find better, more innovative, more economic, more compassionate, more sustainable ways to sate the population. This is a long way of saying it's high time for a paradigm shift. If you listened to my podcast with Kip Anderson and Keegan Kuhn – the guys behind the highly compelling documentary Cowspiracy (I implore you to check out both the podcast and the film if you haven't already), then you already know that industrialized animal agriculture is our #1 environmental threat — far more deleterious to planetary health than transportation or fracking and the current leading cause of species extinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution and

We talk quite often about food on this podcast — particularly the health, environmental and ethical implications our collective dietary choices and the global impact of the industrialized food industry on the same. But you might be less consciously aware of the massive extent to which the garment industry impacts a wide range of concerns from global climate change to animal welfare to ethics and beyond. Fashion is a world that desperately needs an environmentally consci tion. Joshua and his work is part of that solution — leveraging forward-thinking, modern textiles and progressive, business practices that embrace fashion and aesthetics to bring consumers beautiful, better and quite honestly, more ethically imagined and manufactured garments for us to enjoy. This is a really interesting talk about: * the complex intersection of ethics, aesthetics and fashion; * the social norms and parameters that define masculinity; * why fur is the furthest thing from cool; * what really goes into creating garments from wo

From a young, troubled gang member facing an almost certain future of jails and institutions to becoming one of today's freshest voices in the conscious media movement, the life arc of Preston Smiles is something to behold. So it's a pleasure to welcome my friend back to the podcast. Inspirational speaker. Motivational messenger. Fount of creative positivity. All around solid, loving dude. If you are relatively new to the RRP, I strongly suggest rewinding the podcast back to my first sit down with today's guest (RRP #103) for the full Preston Smiles lowdown and origin story — a conversation that ranks right up there amongst some of the most popular and downloaded episodes in the history of the show. I am proud to share this powerful conversation with you today. A conversation that traverses a tapestry of mental, emotional and spiritual topics and truisms, including healthy strategies for: * navigating relationship pitfalls; * overcoming the scarcity mentality; * learning how to access, attract and accept abu

Futurist and science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke famously said, the only way to find the limits of the possible is by going beyond them to the impossible. An apropos theme for my conversation with Jennifer Steinman, a documentary filmmaker who spent well over a year following four seemingly normal, far from professional athletes as they prepare for and undertake one of the most grueling, backbreaking endurance challenges on the planet — a collection of ultra-distance adventure footraces teetering on the absurd dubbed the 4 Desert Series. WHAT IS THE 4 DESERTS? Named by TIME magazine as one of the world's Top 10 Endurance Competitions, the 4 Deserts is the world's leading rough-country endurance footrace series. A unique collection of world-class events that take place over 7 days and 250 kilometers in the largest and most forbidding deserts on the planet. Jennifer has a more poetic take on this lunatic fringe: Imagine you’ve been dropped off in the middle of one of the largest, driest deserts in the World

Let's talk about food. Despite all the diet and nutrition content I consistently and freely generate, Julie and I are still inundated daily with inquiries like: So what exactly do you guys eat? How can I get my kids to make healthier choices? Is it possible to eat healthy on a budget? How can I overcome my cravings for unhealthy foods? And of course…Where do you get your protein? It's questions like these that led to an epiphany: I think it's time for the next book. A cookbook. However, there is is no shortage of amazing plant-based cookbooks already available. What could Julie and I possibly bring to this conversation that hasn't already been said? After pouring through all the cookbooks at our local Barnes & Noble, we made a rather shocking discovery — not a single plant-based cookbook seemed to speak directly to the primary concerns of the typical modern family. So we started to think about how we could fill this gap by providing real, tangible guidance for the soccer moms and softball playing dads with yo

In 2005, New York City firefighter, avid marathoner and ironman athlete Matt Long hopped onto his bike to do what he did every day — ride from his East side Manhattan apartment north to the Randall's Island fire academy where he helped train the city’s bravest. As he crossed 52nd Street, a 20-ton bus made a right turn from the middle lane. The bus didn't just hit him, it dragged his body completely underneath, where Matt was then quite literally impaled by his bike. After receiving 68 units of blood in the first 40 hours post-accident, Matt spent the next month in a coma. When he woke up, the doctors told him he was facing a one percent chance of survival. Matt had other plans. After a 5-month hospital stint and 40 surgeries in under two years, he did more than survive. He finally came alive. The story of Matt’s accident and his comeback quest to tackle the 2008 NYC marathon just 3 years after his accident was first chronicled in an extraordinary story in Runner's World by Charles Butler entitled A Second Lif

Jason Hall is having a moment. The country is having a moment. Although hardly an overnight success story, it's fair to say American Sniper is this talented screenwriter's big break. A break so big he just might win his first Oscar a few days from today. But the celebratory mood is tempered by one inescapable fact: it is constructed from the tragic demise of a man named Chris Kyle. The soldier who not only serves as this contentious movie's protagonist, but was also a man Jason called friend. In an era when studios shy away from war movies as box office poison, American Sniper is an unsuspecting juggernaut. Breaking records left and right, the Bradley Cooper starrer seems to have touched a national nerve, packing theatres across the U.S. to the tune of over $300 million domestically and a fast approaching $400 million worldwide gross. Not only is American Sniper Clint Eastwood's most successful film to date, it's the highest grossing war film of all time. And yet the film is not without its critics and contro

Remember that big deal about how the bread at Subway contains chemicals found in yoga mats? Then there was the story about how fast food French fries contain a chemical used in Silly Putty. And the whole to-do about how there’s actually no pumpkin in the Starbucks pumpkin latte. The person behind these semi-salacious, headline grabbing campaigns is this week’s guest, Vani Hari – aka Food Babe – the outspoken and often divisive food activist behind the wildly popular FoodBabe.com blog. I met Vani at a dinner party this past summer and found her not only delightful but also razor sharp, fiercely passionate and tenacious when the subject turned to food — particularly what big food manufacturers don’t want you to know about what’s in our food. Her message? To empower the typical soccer mom with the information to feed her family right and the courage to stand up for greater transparency and accountability from companies that produce what ends up on our plates. FoodBabe.com, which exceeds an astounding 2.5 million

America's #1 killer, heart disease currently kills 1 out of every 3 Americans; 70% of Americans are obese and getting fatter; and Studies forecast that by 2030, 50% of Americans will be diabetic or pre-diabetic. The great irony in all of this is that, as Dr. Kahn so astutely points out, 80-90% of all chronic health problems can be resolved via pretty simple diet and lifestyle alternations. The tricky part is translating these lifestyle alterations from theory to practice. I understand that it can be difficult for many, particularly when there is so much confusing information out there concerning about heath, nutrition and diet. So confusing in fact, that it becomes incredibly challenging for even the most savvy consumer to separate fact from fiction and truth from hyperbole. Just because good news about bad habits makes for tempting clickbait doesn't mean the information is reliable — its usually not. To help sift through all of this, I once again sit down for a heart to heart (pun intended) with cardiologist

What can mined from the abyss that separates ordinary from extraordinary? Although he's never pedaled a single stage of the Tour de France as a professional cyclist, Mike Cotty has done things on the bike that would make even Jens Voigt (the consensus hard man of the pro peloton) cringe. Here's a taste. Last summer Mike rode his bike 1000 kilometers non-stop across 21 mountains in the Dolomites, Eastern Alps and Swiss Alps, from Conegliano, Italy, to Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, France. That's over 21,000 meters in elevation gain. That's 54 hours of riding without sleep. That's like riding 8 to 10 stages of the Tour de France without stopping. How is that even humanly possible? Mike also rode 684 kilometers for 30 hours straight across the Pyrenees from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. A feat rivaled only by his 33-hour, 677 kilometer ride that ascended 16,000 meters of elevation gain across the Alps. Obviously I wouldn't characterize Mike as normal. Far from it. But there is a very relatable everyman aspect to Mi

This week's episode is a bit of a departure. But like Frost's road less travelled, it's a direction well worth pursuing. My podcast was borne from a love of the art of the long form conversation. Authentic expression is a predominant theme of virtually every episode. And I sheepishly admit to a slight obsession with talented people at the nadir of their creativity, expressing their specific life purpose with unapologetic conviction. Sam Jones is the embodiment and ethos of all these ideals and more. Lauded photographer, documentary filmmaker, award winning music video director, magazine publisher, television creator and podcast host. Oh yeah, he's also married with kids. As a photographer, Sam is the go to guy for top tier magazines such as Vanity Fair, Esquire, Rolling Stone, GQ and Time for creating timeless portraits of luminaries, A-list actors and musicians like Barak Obama, George Clooney, Robert Downey Jr., Bob Dylan, Jack Nicholson and Dave Grohl. All of this is super cool of course. But quite frankl

If we want to repair our broken health care system and move culture towards true, long-term sustainable wellness, then medicine must embrace a a new approach to healing. An approach that's so new, it's old. Less reductive, more holistic. Less diagnose & prescribe and more all-encompassing, functional and preventive. Let’s kick start that conversation. This week's guest is nutritionist, acupuncturist, herbalist, Reiki Master and expert Chinese Medicine practitioner Heather Lounsbury, author of Fix Your Mood with Food*. Although she gave up meat nearly 30 years ago for ethical reasons, Heather was a junk food vegetarian with zero interest health until hers hit the skids. Moody and constantly fatigued, she began experimenting with nutrition and was astonished to discover the extent to which she could modulate her physical and emotional vitality relative to the types of foods she would eat. This realization lead Heather to pursue graduate degrees in nutrition and Chinese medicine. Today Heather is a well respecte

Welcome back to our second spin around the listener Q&A merry-go-round! Due to popular demand (and all the great questions flooding our inbox), we're happy to once again banter on the subjects, issues and topics you want addressed. In this episode Julie and I cover a ton of ground, name dropping resources like an over-caffeinated publicist. Here's a top down view on the landscape: * The importance of the morning ritual to optimize your day; * Inspirational and educational books, websites, podcasts & other online resources; * Resources to facilitate your shift to a Plantpower lifestyle; * A few (very brief) thoughts on high carb / low carb / gluten and nutritional density; * More brief thoughts on certain foods to avoid and others to embrace; and * A few closing thoughts on running volume. No need to break out pen and paper. Due to the hard work of my trusty right hand Chris Swan, everything is detailed, itemized and hyperlinked for your convenience in the below show notes. So just sit back and enjoy. Spec

What if the path you think you're meant to be living isn't your path at all? I grappled with this mental and spiritual Rubik’s cube for decades. Only now — at 48 — do I feel like I have any insight whatsoever into this quandary. Not so with today’s guest. After a drunken car accident at age 19, Jake Ducey had an epiphany: maybe, just maybe, the traditional promise of the American Dream isn't my path to happiness and personal fulfillment. What did he do with this realization? He up and quit school, walking out on a collegiate basketball scholarship to instead light out and travel the world. Along the way, Jake chronicled his journey, distilling his insights down to a book entitled Into the Wind . Undaunted by being turned down by every publisher, he nonetheless self-published his book. And without any marketing budget or publicist, Jake still managed to self-promote Into the Wind to Amazon’s top 300 – no small accomplishment. Jake subsequently piqued the interest and mentorship of people like Chicken Soup for

Welcome to Part 2 of our second annual Best of the RRP Anthology series. If you haven't already, I suggest listening to The Best of 2014 Part 1 first. Once again, this is a compendium of some of my favorite conversations of 2014. Our way of saying thanks. Our way of giving back. Our way of trying to catapult you into the new year armed with the information and inspiration required to make it your best year yet. Once again, it's worth reflecting upon the incredible year that was 2014. My blessings are many. My gratitude is overflowing. This is my way way of saying thank you. I appreciate you. Here's to an extraordinary 2015 — the year we manifest our greatest dreams into reality. Join me, and let's do this thing together. Peace + Plants, Rich

This is the time of year for celebration. This is the time of year for giving back. This is the time of year for gratitude. This is the time of year for reflection. So let's do all those things. Welcome to the second annual Best of the RRP Anthology. This is our way of reflecting back. Our way of expressing gratitude. Our way of giving thanks for taking this journey with us. I pride myself on bringing a wide variety of personalities, opinions and attitudes to the show. When I look back over 2014, even I am surprised by how many incredibly interesting and unique people and perspectives I was honored to entertain and share with you. Second listens brought new insights. Another reminder of what a gift this show has been to me. A gift that gives and keeps on giving. A compendium of some of my favorite conversations of 2014, the next two episodes of the podcast are certain to catapult you into the new year inspired. If you’ve been with me all along, these offerings will bring certain insights back into the foref

At the highest echelons of sport, all the athletes are supremely talented. All have devoted their lives to being the best they can be. All train as hard as they possibly can. And all are optimizing their sleep, nutrition and recovery to glean every extra edge imaginable. So what distinguishes the gold medalist from the also ran? Is it luck? Talent? Support? Resources? Of course every result is significantly influenced by some combination of these important variables. But all things being equal, the athlete with the mental and emotional edge will stand atop the podium every time. Once the embarrassing last stop on a flailing athlete’s career, the world's top sports psychologists now enjoy a highly influential and respected role proactively honing the mental and emotional edge of today's most successful athletes, CEOs and creatives looking to elevate peak performance beyond the imaginable. Enter Dr. Michael Gervais- the go to high performance psychologist everyone is talking about. Director of the High Performa

And now for something completely different… In an effort to create a little more intimacy, a little more community, and a little more connection with you — the audience — I thought I would open the show up to your burning questions. Talk about what you want to talk about for a change. A few weeks back I put the word out for question submissions and you responded — our inbox was flooded with e-mails. So here we are. My first spin with a Q&A format. I picked a handful of queries I thought would make for an interesting and broadly applicable discussion, asked Julie to occupy the co-pilot seat (talking into a microphone alone is really hard, and not that fun) and we gave it our all to answer your questions to the best of our collective abilities. Topics discussed and questions answered pivot around the following: How to pursue your dream when your partner is non-supportive; How to escape an unfulfilling career when you don't know what you really want; How to balance physical fitness against spiritual fitness; Ho

IN-Q returns. It's time to question everything. It's time to get excited for now. If you've been on this journey with me for a while, no doubt RRP 81 seared Q into your permanent consciousness. If you’re new to the show, I strongly suggest you give that episode a listen first. Not only is it an epic conversation, it will give you some crucial context and foundation for today's mind meld. Nonetheless, here's a quick breakdown on the impressive IN-Q curriculum vitae: Rapper. Actor. Teacher. Songwriter, TED Talker & internationally revered spoken word artist, IN-Q is a national poetry slam champion who has shared the stage with people like Barack Obama, De La Soul, Eminem, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, John Legend and even Cirque du Soleil. He has toured over 70 colleges; written songs for Miley Cyrus, Rock Mafia, Selena Gomez and Aloe Blacc and has been featured on virtually every TV network from A&E to ABC, including HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and Versus & Flow. Why is a spoken word poet guesting on a health & wellness