When Rich Roll was in his early forties, he went on a run that changed his life. A successful lawyer, he was aspiring to recover the stamina he had as a Stanford swimmer before his athletic career was halted by addiction.
Roll had already completed his first cycle of transformation by staying sober for a decade. The run was part of his second—this time in pursuit of revitalizing his health after realizing that, at 39, he couldn’t walk upstairs without running out of breath.
“I was going to run for 45 minutes and had one of those moments where you drop into this flow state, feel bulletproof, and like you can run forever,” he shared on the Outside Magazine podcast. “I had never experienced that before, decided to go with it, and ultimately ran 24 miles. It was the last thing I thought would happen and another moment of realizing [that] maybe my life could look differently. Either these lifestyle changes I’ve made are more profound than I anticipated, and/or I’ve unlocked this gene or potential I didn’t even know I had.”
That fateful run started Roll on a journey to becoming a top ultra-endurance athlete competing in some of the world’s most demanding races. His evolution led to his bestselling memoir, Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World’s Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself, and the creation of the Rich Roll Podcast and platform, where he decodes human transformation with artists, athletes, business leaders, and more. His latest venture is Voicing Change Media, a podcast creator network, in partnership with RXR Sports, designed to elevate purpose-driven creators with the wisdom his team gleaned as one of the world’s top 100 podcasts.
It’s understandable to assume that Roll embodies an innate capacity for transformation. Yet that’s far from the case. His path and that of his guests continue to be slow and methodical. Here, he discusses why meditation is his fundamental mindset tool, his ongoing journey to uncouple suffering and achievement, and how he disrupts his routine to discover new possibilities.
Fast Company: After you shared the story of your life-changing run, you said: “If my journey has been about anything, it’s been about trusting those whispers; Being willing to have faith and invest in those little signals that are so faint and yet potentially life-altering and meaningful.” How do you hear those whispers and how do they enable you to fulfill your purpose?
Rich Roll: We all have those whispers. We’re all visited with those little tickles on the back of our minds that help guide us in one direction or the other. But, they get muted out by the busy lives we lead and the level of distraction we tolerate and contend with in our daily lives. To be able to hear the voice of your intuition, and be guided by your instincts, requires a certain level of discipline. It’s a push-pull thing. On the one hand, you have to have the rectitude to get quiet enough so that you can hear them in the first place. Then, the discipline to actually listen and put those pieces into motion is a bricklayer kind of discipline that’s demanded to build a life that is in alignment with your innate blueprint.
The flip side of that is the allowing—the surrendering—and the respect for the things that live beyond what we can rationalize with our intellectually prone, rational brains. On some level, it’s mystical and spiritual to even entertain the possibility that something you’re not going to find in a study or under a microscope is nonetheless real—perhaps more real than what you’re going to find reading a book or listening to a podcast—and that is what essentially makes you, you. In order to not just hear, but trust those instincts as guideposts on your journey, requires enough internal work so that your vessel is clean. That means on a very practical health and wellness level: Are you taking care of yourself? On a mental health level, it means have you done enough of the inside job, so that you understand what your impulses are, which are leading you astray, which are being impulsed by childhood traumas, addictions, or compulsions, and which are the true, best version of you reaching up its hand trying to get your attention. It’s a leap of faith to say: I’m going to step outside of this identity I’ve crafted that society approves of, listen to this other voice, and trust it.
In your Meditation Masterclass, you shared that “there isn’t anything more powerful than developing mastery over your conscious self.” Where are you on that journey and what most contributes to it?
Meditation is the fundamental tool. Then, learning that meditation isn’t just your practice during those 20 minutes. It’s something that you need to bring into your daily experiences.
Fundamentally, all we have is our mind. Who we are and what we do is all a product of consciousness. And, to the extent that consciousness is dictating our behavior on [an] automatic loop versus from a place of intentionality is a powerful realization to keep in the forefront of your awareness. The more I can understand that everything is an appearance and consciousness, the more aware I can be of that, the more positioned I am to exert some level of mediocre mastery over the vicissitudes of my mind, which is petty and egocentric.
I’m a highly flawed individual and prone to my ridiculous proclivities. But, when my meditation practice is dialed in, I can bring that awareness and sense of presence into [my] daily interactions, so it’s not a segmented thing: I did my meditation and now I’m living my life. But, rather understand that your life is an expression of that meditation.
If [I] can bring that mindful awareness to the mundanity of our everyday experiences, then I have the opportunity to respond rather than to react, to catch myself when frustration, resentment, or self-centeredness creeps up, as it always does, and to shorten the half-life on those negative emotions, such that anger or irritation dissipate quickly and don’t leave residue that then percolates into every other experience you’re having that day or week.
On Finding Mastery, you shared that it’s easy to Google your name and assume that everything happened overnight. Yet, in reality, “this has been an ultra-endurance event like no other.” Of the obstacles or evolutions you faced building your platform, and now Voicing Change Media, which was your greatest teacher?
My greatest teacher was my own pain and discomfort. My greatest teacher in human form is and has been my wife. I cannot overstate the extent to which everything that has happened is a result of her conviction in the decisions we were making, which were not exactly welcomed in our social circles. We were trying to do something very hard. There was no blueprint for it and no indication that it was going to be successful. There were many times when I wanted to put my tail between my legs and scuttle back towards the safe law firm experience, so I could pay my bills. It was only through Julie’s courage and faith that I was able to stay the course.
And, it’s true. It took a long time. The podcast has been going on [for] 11 years. I feel like only now is it starting to reach a threshold level where it’s tipping over into broader audiences [more] than it ever has. It’s a function of being consistent and showing up for it every single day, no matter what. I’ve never missed a week.
Anything that I’ve ever been successful at has taken at least 10 years of hard work and anonymous toil to get to that place. I’m an ultra-endurance athlete as an athlete, but also in the way that I’ve approached doing anything in life. There are no shortcuts to mastery. Although there are tips and tricks that people do to accelerate growth, I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in doing great work and getting better over time. I trust that if I’m doing that, the other things take care of themselves.
But, we had to go through a lot of hardship. Financially, it was extremely difficult. Even after Finding Ultra came out, [it was] years and years of not finding a way to pay the bills and bootstrapping the whole thing. Now, to be in this position where everything’s worked out, it’s weird when people think it all just happened. It didn’t happen that way. It happened very slowly over a long period of time.
You’ve shared that “the greatest endurance athletes are the ones who can balance [this] suffering with the spiritual presence of mind that’s also part of endurance training.” How are you reframing the relationship between suffering and achieving your goals?
That’s something I still struggle and contend with. It’s easy for me to look back at any successes I had and frame a narrative that they occurred because I worked harder than anybody else or I was willing to suffer more. I’m really good at suffering and, unless I’m suffering, I’m not working hard enough. I think that has served me well to a point, but also becomes an Achilles’ heel because it’s not necessarily true. It is good that I work hard and that’s a piece of how I’ve gone from where I was to where I am.
But, the larger piece, and the one that’s more difficult to allow to be at the forefront of how I make decisions and approach projects, is that surrender piece. It doesn’t have to be painful. What would it be like if you did this project and you didn’t suffer—you were more in the allowing? What if it was easy? That’s a really uncomfortable place for me. There is a tension between those two things. I’m really good at the first piece, not so good at the second piece. I’m working on it, though.
You illuminate the importance of interrupting our patterns to discover new possibilities. How do you make this a practice in your own life and what does it reveal to you?
We’re pattern-making animals by nature. It’s what our brains do. But, if we want to grow, we have to develop that capacity to interrupt those patterns and stress-test them from time to time.
I’m somebody who’s all over the place and routine allows me to keep my life structured in a way that’s conducive to achieving my goals and being the best version of myself. But I, too, will succumb to a certain routine that keeps me stuck. So, I’ve learned to periodically question these patterns. The way I do this is through daily journaling. I do Morning Pages every day, and that keeps me connected to the patterns that are serving me and the patterns that aren’t. Being in a constant practice of humility, like: What if everything I’m saying is wrong? Let’s look at it from a different angle—[is] a practice like meditation or exercise.
Then, it’s about surrounding yourself with people who have your best interest at heart but can give you honest feedback. So, when you are stuck in a pattern that isn’t serving you, they’re going to be able to point it out. I’m part of a men’s group that has met every Monday night for the last seven years. It’s just seven guys and it’s mediated by a therapist. These guys know me better than anyone. They’re the first to say: You’re stuck here. Or, why are you having the same problem that you had eight months ago with this other person? So, that helps me identify patterns [and] habits in my life that maybe I wouldn’t have been aware of. Everybody could benefit from having some version of that in their life.
You approach every situation by asking: What and how can I give? What role does service play in purpose and performance?
We’re here to grow and we’re here to serve. We’re in this crisis of happiness, purpose, and meaning. The easiest way out of that is to give of yourself to others. We tend to overcomplicate these things, but that’s the easiest shortcut to experiencing what we all want most and seem to lack the most now. We conflate the word service with philanthropy or charity. It’s an energy that you bring into your everyday encounters with [the] people in your life. It’s a practice too.
I’m not naturally grateful and I don’t really want to go out of my way to help other people. I want to help myself. That is the obsession of the mind that keeps me stuck and prevents me from the better life and growth that is available. When I can get out of my own narrative, and be a kinder, gentler, and more compassionate person, who’s willing to help and show up for other people. Not only is that a good thing for the world; I’m happier and my life ends up being better as a result. It’s a win-win.