The Rich Roll Podcast

We all want to be happy.But what exactly is happiness? Can it be cultivated? And if so, how?Somewhere along the way, you've likely heard of something called the Blue Zones — a term coined by this week's guest in reference to five hidden slivers of the world that boast the highest per capita populations of centenarians – people who thrive to 100 and beyond. Unlikely locales where people not live inordinately long,Places where people forgot to die.Interestingly, in addition to outliving their fellow western world equals, the Blue Zoners also seemed resoundingly happier.Dan Buettner wanted to know more. So he shifted focus from longevity and zeroed in on the elusive, ever-so-slippery nature of happiness itself.Deploying his expertise and that of others, he used hard science to better define the emotional state we seek most. He scoured the planet in search of the cultures that most exemplify happiness. He examined the internal and external factors that most promote happiness. And he extrapolated the key lessons that can be best applied for us to all ultimately live better and more fulfilled.The result of Dan's quest is the subject of today's conversation. It's also the the cover story of this month’s issue of National Geographic, the topic he explored all last week on the TODAY Show and the focus of his new Amazon #1 bestselling book, The Blue Zones of Happiness: Lessons from the World's Happiest People*.(full podcast on YouTube!)A true renaissance man, Dan is a National Geographic Fellow, a world adventurer with 3 endurance cycling world records to his name, a longevity expert, and a NY Times Bestselling author who has appeared on Oprah twice, as well as CNN, David Letterman, Good Morning America, Primetime Live, and the Today Show. He has delivered more than 500 keynotes over the last 10 years, including speeches for Bill Clinton’s Health Matters Initiative, Google Zeitgeist, and TEDMED. His TED Talk “How to live to be 100+” has been viewed over 3 million times.Long-time listeners will remember well our initial conversation. RRP 139 (April 2015) explored Dan’s fascinating, adventurous backstory and what he learned studying centenarians. This conversation picks up where that one left off to delve deep into the very nature of happiness. It's about the three pillars that compose it. And the extent to which your environment and lifestyle choices impact your ability to exude and maintain it.It’s a conversation about what you can do to design your surroundings to stack the deck in favor of happiness. And it’s an exchange about the impact of Dan’s work on fundamentally improving health and happiness in cities and municipalities across the United States.But ultimately, this is a powerful primer on how to cultivate greater awareness around the choices we all make daily around food, lifestyle habits, and the quality of our physical and interpersonal environments. And it's about how improving these choices can lead to the one thing we all seek – true, lasting happiness.Enjoy!Rich

Welcome to another Ask Me Anything in-between-isode edition of the podcast with yours truly.Recorded live during our Plantpower Ireland retreat this past July, this is a dynamic discussion that covers a wide-range of topics. Subjects covered include:* how my approach to training, racing and nutrition has evolved over the years;* my approach to racing Ötillö (this was recorded prior to that event);* good pain v. bad pain – i.e., distinguishing laziness from the need to rest;* my role models & influences; and* thoughts on meditation, spirituality & service.In addition, I was asked how Julie and I work together as a team — balancing our similarities and differences. Plus Julie sheds some light on her interesting backstory.I sincerely hope you enjoy the listen.Peace + Plants,Rich

When it comes to food, we've been led to believe that healthy and delicious are mutually exclusive.When it comes to eating plant-based, forget about it. Most people can't imagine their palate can possibly be sated without animal products.I've worked hard to bust this myth.But I'm no chef.Good thing today's guest is.But Rocco DiSpirito is no ordinary chef. A James Beard award-winning culinary wizard, this guy is a straight up food genius.Named Food & Wine magazineʼs Best New Chef, People magazineʼs Sexiest Chef and the first chef to appear on Gourmet magazineʼs cover as Americaʼs Most Exciting Young Chef, Rocco is the author of 13 books (5 of which were NY Times bestsellers) who lorded over 3-Star restaurant Union Pacific, a New York City culinary landmark for many years (The New York Times deemed his dishes “pure genius”). Rocco skyrocketed to mainstream fame starring in a countless array of food and celebrity chef television shows, including NBC's The Restaurant, ABC’s Extreme Weight Loss, Bravo's Top Chef and Rocco’s Dinner Party, Restaurant Divided on Food Network — and even Dancing With The Stars.But it hasn't been all roses. Along the way, Rocco faced much adversity. He's battled detractors. And eventually his fast-paced, rich food-laden life caught up with him. By 38, Rocco had become seriously ill, boasting the metabolic rate of a 64-year old with an extra 40 pounds around the mid-section. His doctor told him he had no choice but to go on a battery of medications. But Rocco declined, setting his focus on healing himself with healthier food and physical exercise. It's a path that forever altered his career and indeed his life — a re-imagination of great tasting food in service to well-being; to physical exercise and the world of triathlon; and more recently to exploring the healing benefits of a plant-based diet and the challenge of creating tantalizing recipes without meat and dairy.Ultimately, Rocco walked away from the cloistered sub-culture of New York City haute cuisine. It's a move that puzzled the restaurant world, but Rocco was committed to leveraging his prodigious kitchen talents to help others achieve the vital wellness he now enjoys. Instead of opening up another bistro, he started coaching people. He launched an all-natural food product line. He founded a meal delivery service called The Pound A Day Diet. And he spends his free-time as an Ambassador for HealthCorps, visiting schools across the country performing cooking demonstrations and encouraging thousands of youth to build healthier habits.Indeed, it's a laudable mission to prove that healthy and delicious can indeed coexist.Rocco's more recent embrace of plant-based cuisine is what piqued my interest in sitting down with him. It's also the thrust of his brand new cookbook, Rocco's Healthy & Delicious: More than 200 (Mostly) Plant-Based Recipes for Everyday Life* hitting bookstores everywhere October 17.I love a good character arc. Charismatic and engaging, Rocco delivers in this super fun conversation with one of the world's greatest chefs.Enjoy!Rich

We tend to think of mushrooms as a pizza topping. Something we toss in a salad. Or a psychedelic to alter consciousness. But that's pretty much where the inquiry ends.However, mushrooms are so much more. In fact, they comprise an entire kingdom. Invisibly surrounding us, they underpin the very foundation of our ecology, impacting us in ways far beyond our appreciation.It may surprise you to learn that mushrooms account for an astonishing 25% of the Earth's total biomass. 92% of all plants are dependent upon mushrooms for their survival. 40% of all pharmaceuticals contain some form of mushroom. And, quite incredibly, 85% of human RNA and 50% of human DNA is shared with fungi.Mushrooms are also woefully under-appreciated when it comes to promoting health, fighting illness, buttressing longevity, enhancing memory and even boosting libido. Indeed, when properly understood and utilized, mushrooms hold the capacity to change your life in an immediate, powerful, and exponentially beneficial manner.To walk us through the magical and mysterious world of mushrooms, I sat down with my long-time friend Tero Isokauppila, the original fun-guy himself.(behind the scenes of my podcast with Tero)A life-long student of nutrition and expert on natural health hailing from Finland, Tero is the co-founder, president and marketing director of Four Sigmatic, the company behind a wide variety of very popular (and globally available) medicinal mushroom coffees, hot cacaos and elixir products that has successfully begun to introduce the health-promoting benefits of mushrooms to the mainstream.I’m not talking about mind-bending psychedelics. And I’m not talking about garden variety portobellos or even gourmet truffles. I’m talking about adaptogenic, superfood varieties most people have never previously heard of or know little to nothing about. I'm talking about less-understood immunity, longevity, and energy boosting fungi like reishi, chaga, lion’s mane, and my all-time favorite, cordyceps.Tero has been a featured speaker at events like Summit Series and Wanderlust, was chosen as one of the world's Top 50 Food Activists by the Academy of Culinary Nutrition and both he and the work of Four Sigmatic have been profiled everywhere, including Vogue, Time, Forbes, W Magazine, Harper's Bazaar, BuzzFeed, Bon Appétit, Goop, Well+Good, and MindBodyGreen.In addition, Tero is also the author of Healing Mushrooms: A Practical and Culinary Guide to Using Adaptogenic Mushrooms For Whole Body Health*, which hits bookstores everywhere Oct. 10. If today's conversation sparks deeper interest, I highly suggest picking it up. Not only is it highly instructive, it include 50+ recipes sure to expand your culinary horizon.This is a phenomenal conversation that tracks Tero's unique path from a kid foraging mushrooms in a 13th generation Finnish farming family to the entrepreneurial success he is today.It’s also fascinating deep dive into this mysterious mushroom kingdom and how these fungi can support human health. More specifically, we get granular on the individual adaptogenic properties of the most prominent superfood varieties and how incorporating them into your daily routine can take your health, longevity and performance to the next level.Enjoy!Rich

Man is a microcosm of the macrocosm. The nature that exists outside of us also lives within us. Separation is an illusion.Indeed, we are all intrinsically connected — to each other and the world that surrounds us. Embracing this fundamental truth lies at the core of ultimate well-being. Because true health doesn't stop at the kale salad — it requires fidelity to our natural rhythms and a comprehensive, holistic devotion to bettering and balancing not just our physical bodies, but our mental, emotional, and spiritual selves as well.Returning to the podcast to walk us through this powerful law of nature is Colin Hudon.A gifted healer, physician of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Taoist Arts, Colin is also an herbalist, acupuncturist, tea master, and founder of Living Tea, an enterprise that finds Colin traveling across China, Taiwan, and Malaysia multiple times a year to source and import the finest and rarest old-growth teas and teaware in the world, sharing his expertise and wares in group tea ceremonies, with an eye on opening a tea house in Colorado in 2018.On point and remarkably instructive, this episode is lifted from Colin's open dissertation conducted during our Plantpower Ireland retreat this past July.Most of us live lost in our heads. A predisposition that leaves us disconnected from ourselves, others, and the world. This is about transcending our addiction to thought and information, and how to leverage mindfulness and awareness to live healthier and more fully actualized.Colin also delivers an amazing primer on what we can glean from Traditional Chinese methods of medicine and healing. A perspective that begins with embracing seasonal rhythms to live in better alignment with the laws of nature.In addition, it's also about tea. How tea, and the traditional ceremony around its enjoyment can serve as a powerful, moving meditation — an expression of living art that soothes the soul and enhances vitality.In anticipation of this episode, Colin was cool enough to create a special offer for listeners to purchase his amazing Living Tea (the only tea I drink) at reduced prices, including an awesome new subscription service called Tea Club, which takes the guesswork out of differentiating his exotic teas. When you sign up, Colin will send you the best seasonably appropriate, rare, old-growth teas (3-4 teas per season) quarterly, plus a bundle of extras, including information on the tea’s origin, optimal brewing techniques and Chinese medical philosophy on how to live a healthy, longevity focused life, including food suggestions and more. When you add the promo code RICHROLL at checkout listeners will get 12% off on your first season. In addition, if you follow Colin on Instagram (@livingtea) and click through the link in his bio to purchase you will also get 15% off on everything he has in stock.To learn more go to livingtea.net and click on Tea Club and sign up for his newsletter to be first in on future offerings and rebates. And should you happen to find yourself in the Denver area, I highly suggest you schedule a tea ceremony with Colin — as someone who has sat for tea with Colin many times, I can tell you it's a transcendent experience.This is not an ad: I do not have any financial or professional association with Colin...Enjoy!Rich

Maybe you love your job. Perhaps you don't.Either way, there's wisdom in cultivating a side hustle — not a second job, but a self-styled income-generating project you cultivate in your free time.Why do I need this? Ask Choose Yourself! author (and podcast guest) James Altucher and he'll wax rhapsodic about the precarious nature of conventional career paths and the misplaced trust we invest in their long-term security. Invest in ownership. For some, the thought of quitting their day job to pursue the entrepreneurial life is exhilarating. For most, however, this is a terrifying prospect. And not everyone has the means or the desire to take on the risks and responsibilities of working for themselves.But Chris Guillebeau contends it's not an either or scenario. Not only can you have both, you should. As traditional career trajectories give way to the rise of our freelance economy, it's wise to diversify your income stream. But creating something on the side entirely your own isn't just about extra cash. And it's not really about becoming an entrepreneur (because most people aren't). It's also about cultivating purpose. It's about elevating your sense of direction. And imbuing your path with greater personal meaning.A master of unconventional, purposeful living, Chris is a widely acclaimed author, blogger, entrepreneur and modern-day adventurer. Ripe with wanderlust after a 4-year stint as a NGO volunteer executive in West Africa, he embarked on a multi-year quest to travel to every country in the world, all 193, before his 35th birthday. Along the way, Chris began sharing his adventures on a newly hatched blog. What began as a rather ignored and somewhat turgid travelogue soon morphed into The Art of Non-Conformity, a globally revered portal that chronicles Chris' personal experiences and the wisdom of a dynamic multitude of unconventional people overcoming conventional social mores around work, life and travel to achieve personal goals and greater life satisfaction outside traditional paradigms.Enjoy!Rich

Today I sit down with New York Times bestselling author Gretchen Rubin to find out what happened when she asked a large number of people one singular question: how do you respond to expectations?The answers led Gretchen to an epiphany — that four distinct human tendencies intrinsically underlie how each and every one of us approach our interior and exterior lives. Understanding your tendency changes how you perceive yourself and others. It informs better communication. It provides the structure to create better habits. And ultimately it serves to support the purposeful pursuit of the personal and professional life experience you most seek.This is the terrain of today's exploration.A member of Oprah’s Super Soul 100 who was named one of the Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company, Gretchen is an über-author who has sold over 3 million books on the subject of habits, happiness and human nature. You may know Gretchen from her wildly popular blog, her runaway bestseller The Happiness Project*, or from one of her other many titles such as Happiness At Home* and Better Than Before*. An exploration of the aforementioned architecture of human motivation, Gretchen's new book is entitled The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How To Make Your Life Better (and Other People's Lives Better, Too)*.When she isn't writing, Gretchen hosts the wildly popular Happier With Gretchen Rubin podcast (along with her sister, TV writer Elizabeth Craft), awarded “Best Podcasts of 2015” honors by iTunes and named one of the “Best Podcasts of 2016″ by the Academy of Podcasters (I didn't even know podcasting had an academy, but there ya go).In addition, Gretchen is the creator of Better, a free mobile app that connects you with others to harness the Four Tendencies and create a better life.This conversation is jam packed with super helpful amazing takeaways.A former editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, we track Gretchen's leap from high-powered lawyer to pursue a career in writing.We talk about how her revelation about “expectations” led to The Four Tendencies, then unpack the specifics, tracking how these core archetypes can better inform our habits, our understanding of others and how we structure our professional and personal lives.I learned a lot about myself in this one.Enjoy!Rich

An open panel discussion on non-traditional healing modalities and how we conceptualize balance in the construct of our lives, this episode is lifted from a session that Julie Piatt and I conducted during our Plantpower Ireland retreat this past July.It features our long-time friend Colin Hudon, a physician of Traditional Chinese Medicine who is also the founder of Living Tea, which imports the finest living teas sourced from ancient tea trees across both China and Taiwan.Topics discussed include:* Colin & Julie's personal struggles and experiences with self-healing;* Broadening our concept of healing beyond traditional Western modalities;* The idea of “healing by subtraction”; and* A lengthy discussion about how we conceptualize and apply the idea of “balance” in our lives.Plus, we take some great questions and comments from our Plantpower tribe!This one veers towards the more esoteric, so please approach with an open mind. You might be surprised by the self-reflection it stimulates.I sincerely hope you enjoy the exchange.Peace + Plants,Rich

Let's talk about doping.Throw cycling into the conversation and emotions are sure to run hot. It's an emotional subject for reasons both obvious and obscure. A flashpoint that divides loyalties, pitting our innate sense of fairness against our natural impulse to forgive.I have opinions on the matter. But my perspective is far from set in cement. Because I am aware that it's formed from the sidelines, as an observer of a very insular subculture beyond my direct experience, and to which I am not privy. Unless you were actually there — in the unfortunate and precarious position so many athletes across so many sports abruptly find themselves — my opinion is that we should not be so quick to judge.Everybody thinks they would make the right choice. I certainly do. But that's just projection. The truth is that you don't actually know what you would do. Connecting with this impulse helps me empathize with those who went astray. Is that a good thing? I honestly don't know.Phil Gaimon did make the right choice. A somewhat polarizing figure in the cycling community, today he tells the tale.Overcoming childhood obesity to achieve his dream of riding professionally, over the course of his professional cycling career Phil competed on several established domestic teams like Jelly Belly, Bissel and Optum-Kelly Benefit as well as high profile, international UCI teams like Garmin Sharp in 2014 and Cannondale–Drapac in 2016 before hanging up his bib shorts at the end of last year. Well, not exactly, but I'll get to that part in a minute.Along the way he has raced and trained with the best. Now he writes about his experiences, coming clean on what transpired behind cycling's shrouded curtain with wit and a healthy dose of comedic self-deprecation. He is the author of Pro Cycling On $10 A Day* and Ask a Pro*. His newest tome, Draft Animals: Living The Pro Cycling Dream (Once In A While) — an entertaining memoir about achieving his childhood dream of riding pro on the World Tour and what happened to him when he achieved it — hits bookstores October 10, 2017.When he's not writing books, Phil is an active blogger and contributor to various cycling publications like Velo News. He also hosts The Peloton Brief Podcast and is the founder of Phil’s Cookie Fondo – a series of cycling adventures between 32 and 113 miles taking place October 15 that showcases Malibu’s great climbs (and apparently involves a lot of cookies).Back to the bib shorts. He didn't exactly hang them up. In fact, Phil has spent the better part of the last year pursuing what he calls The Worst Retirement Ever — an endeavor in which he is attempting to clock the fastest-ever...

What do you become when your mom is the CEO of a prestigious fashion empire and your dad is a musician accompanying notorious acts like Billy Idol and the art punk group Suicide?You alchemize that business savvy with artistry. And pivot.Such is the tale of plant alchemist and holistic heroine Amanda Chantal Bacon – a wellness entrepreneur committed to the idea that food is equal parts art and medicine; as much about pleasure as healing; and that creativity and sustenance can be one and the same.A graduate of the New England Culinary Institute and former Food & Wine Editor at the LA Times, Amanda served apprentice duties under Suzanne Goin, the James Beard Award winning chef at the famous Luques Restaurant, who served as her mentor and inspiration behind Moon Juice, an online holistic apothecary and chain of elegant community-centric juice shops with three locations across Los Angeles that Amanda founded in 2012.Amanda is also the author of the exquisite Moon Juice Cookbook, and has been profiled extensively in the most prestigious publications in the world, including the New York Times Sunday Magazine, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Elle, Vogue, InStyle, and The Hollywood Reporter.In addition, Amanda is no stranger to controversy. Last year found her square in the Internet's vicious, vitriolic crosshairs — an experience we explore at length.This is a conversation about Amanda's eclectic upbringing and unique entrepreneurial path. It's about taking control of your education and your path. It's a conversation about self-care habits, and the power of plants to heal. And it's about food not just as nourishment, but as an experience.Spending time with Amanda was soothing and delightful.I sincerely hope you enjoy the exchange.Peace + Plants,Rich