Speaker 1: You can't read about going through hardship in a book
Speaker 1: and then speak to it. You have to go through
Speaker 1: it so that you can share with someone that's a
Speaker 1: little bit behind you on the path. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the
Speaker 1: importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think ring true.
Speaker 1: And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good Wolfe thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest or shall I say guests today are Rich
Speaker 1: Role and Julie Piatt. This episode is a landmark for
Speaker 1: The One You Feed because it's not only the first
Speaker 1: time a guest has appeared on the podcast for a
Speaker 1: second time, but also the first time that we have
Speaker 1: interviewed two guests at once. If you don't already know
Speaker 1: Rich role from his books, podcast or his career as
Speaker 1: a vegan altar endurance athlete, you might remember him from
Speaker 1: his appearance on The One You Feed episode number seventeen.
Speaker 1: Joining Rich on this episode is Julie Piatt. Julie is
Speaker 1: an artist, musician, chef, and co writer of the beautiful
Speaker 1: new book The Plant Power Way. Here's the interview. Hi, Rich, High, Julie,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Hey Eric, thanks for having us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for having us. Great to talk to
Speaker 1: you again. You are our first time second guest, Rich,
Speaker 1: so you are the first one who's ever made it back.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm I'm touched and deeply honored. Thank you. And
Speaker 1: we have your wife Julie with us this time also,
Speaker 1: which is great. And we're going to talk about your
Speaker 1: new book here shortly. But first let's start off like
Speaker 1: we always do with the parable, and uh, this time
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let Julie give her interpretation of it. So
Speaker 1: there is an old parable of the two Wolves where
Speaker 1: there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and he says,
Speaker 1: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 1: are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 1: other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 1: and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops, he thinks
Speaker 1: about it for a second. He looks up at his
Speaker 1: grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And
Speaker 1: the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you, Julie, what that parable
Speaker 1: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 1: that you do. Well, wow, that's beautiful. Um. What the
Speaker 1: parable means to me is that what you put your
Speaker 1: attention on is what grows uh and what informs your experience. Um.
Speaker 1: And even more than that is that as co creators
Speaker 1: and as um you know divine beings that came into
Speaker 1: a body. I believe that we are spiritual beings having
Speaker 1: a human experience, that we in fact even have the
Speaker 1: power to shape our experience through the lens or perspective
Speaker 1: that we choose to adopt around any dark or light experience. Excellent,
Speaker 1: And maybe you guys could spend a minute. I know
Speaker 1: you've got a new book either depending on exactly when
Speaker 1: we release this will either just be about to come
Speaker 1: out or we'll have just been released. Why don't this
Speaker 1: is a book that you guys wrote together. It's a beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful book. I got a copy of it and it
Speaker 1: looks great. Maybe give the listeners just a brief overview
Speaker 1: of what the book is about and what your goals
Speaker 1: were with it. Yeah. Absolutely. So. About three years ago
Speaker 1: I wrote my first book, which was called Finding Ultra,
Speaker 1: and that was kind of my my memoir. It was
Speaker 1: an inspirational kind of story, and interlaced in that was
Speaker 1: all kinds of nutritional information that's been kind of transformational
Speaker 1: for me. And what happened was a lot of people
Speaker 1: read that book and they were inspired and said, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to I want to do something like you.
Speaker 1: I'm ready to go, but what do I eat? Right?
Speaker 1: And So although I provided all this nutritional information, I
Speaker 1: didn't give specific guidance um as to you know, recipes, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So it was kind of an obvious next book to
Speaker 1: put together, a cookbook. Um But it's been an interesting
Speaker 1: process and trying to put together something that that I
Speaker 1: feel like had never been done before. Because when Julie
Speaker 1: and I kind of perused what was available and looked
Speaker 1: at all the books, you know, all the vegan cookbooks,
Speaker 1: plant based cookbooks, healthy eating, paleo cookbooks that you will
Speaker 1: find at your local bar As and Nobles. There's certainly
Speaker 1: no shortage of amazing, beautiful and informative books. Um, And
Speaker 1: I thought, well, I don't want to just do a
Speaker 1: book because it seems like it's the next thing we're
Speaker 1: supposed to do unless we can really figure out a
Speaker 1: way to contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way.
Speaker 1: And what I noticed was that there didn't really seem
Speaker 1: to be anything out there that was providing guidance for
Speaker 1: just the typical modern American family who's just looking to
Speaker 1: eat healthier, be better and help their kids more importantly
Speaker 1: or as importantly, you know, learn healthier lifestyle tools to
Speaker 1: make better choices. And so this book kind of was
Speaker 1: born out of the idea of trying to create a
Speaker 1: welcome mat um and a mouthpiece to really kind of
Speaker 1: invite people in who you know, are not necessarily vegan
Speaker 1: or don't even necessarily know that that's what they want
Speaker 1: to do into, you know, the world in which we live,
Speaker 1: which is healthy, vibrating, you know, plant based foods close
Speaker 1: to their natural state. And so the book is, um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's very much a cookbook. It's got a
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty plus delicious, easy to prepare plant based
Speaker 1: recipes that you know will fuel my athletic pursuits and
Speaker 1: and basically seated the desires of our children and the
Speaker 1: more carnivorous of our friends. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I would say about half of it is lifestyle guide.
Speaker 1: You know, it's packed with tools and resources and and
Speaker 1: opinion pieces, basically everything that you need to know to
Speaker 1: kind of transition into a healthier, more sustainable way of
Speaker 1: living and being excellent. Well, it has been a little
Speaker 1: over a year since we had you on the show
Speaker 1: the first time, Rich and Um. At that time, I
Speaker 1: made a commitment to eat plant powered for thirty days
Speaker 1: how to go Well, I did it for thirty days,
Speaker 1: and then I continued, and I have to say that
Speaker 1: it's a little over a year later, I don't eat
Speaker 1: a hundred sent plant based, but I bet it's ninety
Speaker 1: five plus. Um. I've not gone back to eating any meat. UM.
Speaker 1: I have the occasional dairy or butter is pretty much
Speaker 1: I would say the extent of it beyond that, it's
Speaker 1: pretty much been all all whole food based, or at
Speaker 1: least all plant based. I have a weakness towards like
Speaker 1: kind energy bars or that sort of thing, which I
Speaker 1: know were not great, but boy they're convenient and easy.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's it could be worse. Um, that's impressive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's I didn't realize that that you were so on board.
Speaker 1: That's really amazing. Yeah, it's been. Um, it's been pretty
Speaker 1: pretty transformational in just overall health. It certainly makes it
Speaker 1: easier to make good decisions for me when there's pretty clear,
Speaker 1: laid out, laid out rules. I just did again recently,
Speaker 1: I did another thirty days where I was a percent
Speaker 1: committed to only whole plant based foods, and and I
Speaker 1: do well on that plane in because I do good
Speaker 1: without ambiguity. Um, when I'm like, well, i'll probably eat
Speaker 1: mostly better, I tend to, uh only mostly improve. Because
Speaker 1: you're trying to feed two wolves. That's exactly right, and
Speaker 1: that that that bad wolf is a hungry character sometimes,
Speaker 1: So what is your experience bad? You know, I certainly
Speaker 1: lost some weight. I mean I don't I'm not certainly
Speaker 1: wasn't really overweight, but I lost weight and I think
Speaker 1: the biggest experience is that when I eat, I just
Speaker 1: don't feel bad after I eat. I never really have
Speaker 1: the experience of unless I you know, I've I think
Speaker 1: I've had pizza like twice in that that time period.
Speaker 1: Afterwards I was like, oh man, after I got done eating.
Speaker 1: So I think that's been the biggest for me, is
Speaker 1: that I just I don't have that after eating sense
Speaker 1: of tiredness or feeling too full or feeling lousy. Um,
Speaker 1: that's been a big one. UM. I think it's hard
Speaker 1: for me to know. Energy wise, I tend to be
Speaker 1: I'm kind of on the go a lot. I do
Speaker 1: a lot, so my energy level tends to be pretty
Speaker 1: consistently high. UM. But it certainly has um it seems
Speaker 1: to have leveled out those periods where it's not so much.
Speaker 1: So I've obviously I'm still doing it, so I really
Speaker 1: like it. Yeah that's great. Yeah, so thank you for
Speaker 1: the inspiration to try it. Chris has been vegetarian longer
Speaker 1: than that, and I remember when he became vegetarian, I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know about that, um. And so
Speaker 1: when I started this, I was like, well, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna do it. But it was you know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that I did as part of that thirty
Speaker 1: days was I was like, well, I should probably learn
Speaker 1: more about food and where it comes from and all
Speaker 1: that is a way to support me, which absolutely did
Speaker 1: that because it pretty much, um changed my relationship to
Speaker 1: food forever. Watching things like Food Inc. And some of
Speaker 1: those different things really made me see the world totally different.
Speaker 1: And then you a lot of the stuff that that
Speaker 1: you've continued to do has been very important in supporting
Speaker 1: me on that on that eating plan. Too super cool
Speaker 1: to hear. So you guys wrote a book together, and
Speaker 1: so what I'm interested in is how that experience has been.
Speaker 1: You guys working together on creating a book, and I'm
Speaker 1: curious about, um, how it goes in general. But I'm
Speaker 1: also curious if you guys are willing to be a
Speaker 1: little bit more open about There's got to be challenges
Speaker 1: that come up in that process and how do you
Speaker 1: guys handle those? Yeah, I mean I think it's it's
Speaker 1: been a it's been a very interesting journey, uh, and
Speaker 1: it's been cool. I mean when I wrote Finding Ultra,
Speaker 1: I just you know, locked myself up and uh in
Speaker 1: a closet and kind of banged it out. You know,
Speaker 1: I worked with an editor, but it was very much
Speaker 1: kind of a singular, solo experience. And this book is
Speaker 1: very different. Um. You know, whereas my my book was
Speaker 1: my story, this book is our family story. And so
Speaker 1: our our whole family has participated in in the creation
Speaker 1: of this book. And and you know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of cooks in the kitchen. We have photographers and graphic artists,
Speaker 1: and I was collaborating with my wife, and so it
Speaker 1: was a team approach and you know it's been, uh,
Speaker 1: it's been I think that that has raised the bar
Speaker 1: on the quality of what we're able to put out
Speaker 1: because we have so much talent. That's that that this
Speaker 1: book is infused with, um, you know, and for me,
Speaker 1: it was it was an evolution of learning to looting,
Speaker 1: learning to let go, trying not to be a control
Speaker 1: freak about certain things, and you know, to let everybody
Speaker 1: excel at what they're most talented. And you know, I
Speaker 1: certainly wasn't going to be in the kitchen telling Julie,
Speaker 1: you know, how to create these amazing uh you know,
Speaker 1: artistic recipes and dishes that she has conceived. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's her, that's her thing. You know, so we we
Speaker 1: divided up the work and then we would meet and
Speaker 1: get together try to figure out, you know, always pushing
Speaker 1: the envelope on how we could make it better and
Speaker 1: better and better. Yeah. I mean for me, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, really the creation of the book was
Speaker 1: just a natural, authentic extension of how we live our lives.
Speaker 1: And it really came about when Rich was training for
Speaker 1: the beginning Ultraman races, and he was doing these insane
Speaker 1: amount of hours, you know, training out for you know,
Speaker 1: eight hour bike rides and you know, running forty miles
Speaker 1: you know as a training run in this these type
Speaker 1: of things. And uh, what I realized is that I
Speaker 1: didn't really understand what he was doing because as his
Speaker 1: wife and his partner, he would just leave, go out
Speaker 1: the door, and the door would shut, and then eight
Speaker 1: hours later he would come back through that door. But
Speaker 1: I had no context for what he had done in
Speaker 1: those eight hours. And you know, I usually would hand
Speaker 1: him a child and I'd say, okay, your turn. I'm out,
Speaker 1: Like I'm going to go, you know, play some music
Speaker 1: or go practice sugar. It's my turn now, right, And
Speaker 1: one day he said to me, you know, do you
Speaker 1: you you understand, I just ran a marathon, like he
Speaker 1: said it to me, as I was handing him a child,
Speaker 1: and and I stopped for a minute, and I realized
Speaker 1: I had no idea that that's what he had done.
Speaker 1: And I thought, you know, this guy is really committed
Speaker 1: to this, and and I could really support him. I
Speaker 1: could really be supportive to him if I really tried
Speaker 1: to feed him. And so I then embarked on this
Speaker 1: kind of creative process. I'm an artist, musician, you know.
Speaker 1: I I use whatever medium is in front of me
Speaker 1: to express myself creatively. And so I turned to the
Speaker 1: kitchen and I started just creating these recipes with the
Speaker 1: intention of nourishing him, replenishing his you know, reserve, so
Speaker 1: that he could get up and go out and train
Speaker 1: the following day. So, after you know, a period of time,
Speaker 1: I had a collection of recipes which ended up being
Speaker 1: you know, an online book that we did originally called
Speaker 1: Gi Seed, which is forty four recipes. But then eventually,
Speaker 1: you know, we wanted to do a full coffee table book. Um.
Speaker 1: And so I'm very very um, you know, I feel
Speaker 1: very blessed that every single recipe in this book is
Speaker 1: one of my recipes. It's a recipe that I developed
Speaker 1: in the kitchen with my family, and they are recipes
Speaker 1: that we eat on a rotating basis. So it's very
Speaker 1: authentic in its presentation, and um, that is uh. I
Speaker 1: think that's a very very uh, you know, powerful and
Speaker 1: transformational place to come from. Yeah, it seems very authentic
Speaker 1: in that way. And I have to say that my
Speaker 1: plant powered eating life would be far improved by having
Speaker 1: you in my life making these delicious look at things
Speaker 1: that are in here. That's why that is for sure. Well,
Speaker 1: what I hope is that you'll cook out of the
Speaker 1: book and you'll you know, get some techniques because the
Speaker 1: other thing that is really amazing about my recipes is
Speaker 1: that they are incredibly simple and easy to prepare. I
Speaker 1: am a very busy person. I'm a mom of four.
Speaker 1: I'm also an artist. I'm you know, recording music and
Speaker 1: painting and eating. And I don't have you know, hours
Speaker 1: and hours and hours, you know, I'm not. I'm not,
Speaker 1: you know, spending my entire Sunday planning my weekly meal plans.
Speaker 1: So I think you'll find if you flip through this book,
Speaker 1: with the exception of some you know, a few recipes,
Speaker 1: that are in there. Most of the recipes can be
Speaker 1: prepared in under thirty minutes, and they're extremely tasty and easy.
Speaker 1: And I really believe that anyone, even if you're not
Speaker 1: a chef or you're not a cook, you could, uh
Speaker 1: you could master a lot of these recipes and really
Speaker 1: have a transformation in your life. Yeah, they look like
Speaker 1: they would be within my my reach of cooking ability
Speaker 1: for sure. I'm sure they are certain that they are. Yes.
Speaker 1: So early in the book, at one point you talk
Speaker 1: about that you guys embarked on this this transformational journey. Um,
Speaker 1: I think it sounds like, Julie, you've been involved in
Speaker 1: in thinking about transformation. Maybe a little bit longer, but
Speaker 1: as a as a group you really started in and
Speaker 1: it said, it's been about eight years, and you say
Speaker 1: that during that time you had some unimaginable highs matched
Speaker 1: by countless low lows. And I would be curious what
Speaker 1: are some of the lows that you guys have found
Speaker 1: as you've gone through this process? Oh wow, Well, I
Speaker 1: mean where to even begin with that? You know, I
Speaker 1: think people that are familiar on a surface level, you know,
Speaker 1: with my story and parts of our story as a family, Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a tendency to kind of project, you know, this
Speaker 1: idea that well he could go out and do all
Speaker 1: that training because he was a lawyer, and he had
Speaker 1: money saved in the bank, and they live in a
Speaker 1: nice house and all this sort of stuff. And the
Speaker 1: truth is is that, you know, our journey has been
Speaker 1: extremely hard fought, and it has been marked by you know,
Speaker 1: more more come to Jesus moments and and dark knights
Speaker 1: of the soul than I care to, you know, recall,
Speaker 1: and you know specifically, we've had days where we had
Speaker 1: to send the kids to school without lunch. We almost
Speaker 1: lost our house. We went and lived in yurts on Hawaii,
Speaker 1: wondering whether we would able ever be able to come
Speaker 1: back to our house. You know, like we've we have
Speaker 1: fought very very hard to craft this life that we have,
Speaker 1: and we risked everything for it. You know, we put
Speaker 1: everything on the line and walked away from a very
Speaker 1: different life to embrace this heart, heart based, faith based
Speaker 1: lifestyle so that we could pursue what we love and
Speaker 1: share a message with the world that is helpful, you know,
Speaker 1: hopefully helpful to other people. But you know, it has
Speaker 1: been very much a warrior's path and we have we know,
Speaker 1: we've bled for it, and it's very It makes it
Speaker 1: all the more gratifying now when everything is congealed and
Speaker 1: the pieces are coming together and it all makes sense,
Speaker 1: and you know, people can look at it and say, well, wow,
Speaker 1: what they're doing is so amazing. They don't see, you know,
Speaker 1: how hard we had to fight to get to this
Speaker 1: place where that we're at right now. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: that's so important to share that with people, because there
Speaker 1: is a perception with anybody who's been successful a lot
Speaker 1: of times that they just came that way or it
Speaker 1: was easy for them, and I think that that can
Speaker 1: hold a lot of people back from trying to do
Speaker 1: things that they want to do. I think hearing the
Speaker 1: journey that people go through, the struggles they go through,
Speaker 1: even particularly when it's people that a lot of people
Speaker 1: look up to or who are in the public eye,
Speaker 1: that's so powerful. Yeah, it really is. I mean, you know, life,
Speaker 1: you know, life doesn't discriminate, and if you're a human being,
Speaker 1: you're going to be given a certain you know, set
Speaker 1: of events you know that are laid out across your
Speaker 1: lifetime and to you know, portray the illusion that it's
Speaker 1: all you know, a cake walk is just irresponsible and
Speaker 1: just not true. It's it's just not true. And you know,
Speaker 1: as human beings, we have an opportunity to transform through
Speaker 1: these you know, we we change and we become who
Speaker 1: we are much more through the adversarial moments then we
Speaker 1: do through easy times. Not to say that, I you know,
Speaker 1: I still am calling in lots of easy times for us.
Speaker 1: You know, I've I've you know, we we've really we
Speaker 1: really had our share. So I'm extremely grateful. But the
Speaker 1: other part of it is that you know, we don't
Speaker 1: take any of any of what is happening for granted,
Speaker 1: for even one moment. I mean, you know, the other
Speaker 1: Rich sent me a text, you know, just last week
Speaker 1: and he was like, remember when we couldn't eat? You know,
Speaker 1: remember when you know our cars got repossessed, Like remember
Speaker 1: when we thought we were losing the house. And you know,
Speaker 1: this one on for many, many years. So it wasn't
Speaker 1: just a small three month period. It was a step
Speaker 1: into the unknown and a commitment to walk the path.
Speaker 1: And uh and because we did that with pure heart, courage,
Speaker 1: and surrender, you know, creation or the divine force has
Speaker 1: delivered us much more than we ever imagined. Uh In
Speaker 1: in some aspects, some things that have happened to us
Speaker 1: are just like, you know, crazy, amazing, um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: every every human being gets that opportunity to have that experience.
Speaker 1: And for people to think that the human lie, if
Speaker 1: you know, is all easy for someone it's just I
Speaker 1: think it's untrue. When you guys talk about a lot
Speaker 1: of the challenges here you're talking about financial Was this
Speaker 1: really in making the transition rich from you being a
Speaker 1: lawyer to pursuing um, what you guys do now, which
Speaker 1: is you know, encouraging others in changing their lifestyle. Was
Speaker 1: Was this really where the the challenge was in making
Speaker 1: that transition out of sort of a paid job to
Speaker 1: a career that's that's focused on what you do now. Well,
Speaker 1: I would say that's true in a macro sense, but
Speaker 1: I think that the you know, the finer points of
Speaker 1: it are a lot more there's a lot more great
Speaker 1: dation to it, because it's not like I had a
Speaker 1: high paying job and then I just quit and walked
Speaker 1: out and did something different the next day. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was more gradual than that, because you know the
Speaker 1: first step that I did was leave a leave a
Speaker 1: large corporate law firm. And then and then I was
Speaker 1: practicing law with a couple other friends and we had
Speaker 1: our own small, little law firm. So that was a move,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of away from what I was doing.
Speaker 1: That gave me a little bit more freedom because suddenly
Speaker 1: I didn't have a boss. And then it was a
Speaker 1: move kind of away from that while still doing that,
Speaker 1: stepping into the ultra endurance world, while still like having
Speaker 1: one ft. You know, I was feeding two wolves. I
Speaker 1: was practicing. I was still trying to hold onto my
Speaker 1: law practice on some level, but I was trying to
Speaker 1: step into this other world. So as a result of
Speaker 1: trying to do both of those things, my law practice
Speaker 1: was suffering. The income was starting to decline, and meanwhile
Speaker 1: I was, you know, gaining success in the ultra endurance world,
Speaker 1: but not making any money. And that's when it's sort
Speaker 1: of okay, well what are we doing out And then
Speaker 1: I got the book deal, and I got a nice advance.
Speaker 1: You know, for a first time writer who had never
Speaker 1: written a book, it was it was really cool to
Speaker 1: get like this nice advance. But you know, with four
Speaker 1: kids and those checks kind of you know, divide it
Speaker 1: up into you know, you get thirty you know, thirty
Speaker 1: percent here or thirty percent there or whatever doesn't end
Speaker 1: up being enough to really support my family and not
Speaker 1: enough to like sort of in a in a fiscally
Speaker 1: responsible way, say I'm going to walk away from my career. Um.
Speaker 1: But when the book you know, finally came out in
Speaker 1: May of two thousand twelve, I understood implicitly that I
Speaker 1: was being gifted with an opportunity, um, with this book,
Speaker 1: to be able to step into, you know, a new
Speaker 1: way of navigating the world professionally. But that was only
Speaker 1: going to happen, um, if I was willing to put in,
Speaker 1: you know, go the extra mile and put in all
Speaker 1: the work that was going to be required to really
Speaker 1: push the book out there and get it in front
Speaker 1: of people. Because I wasn't. I wasn't like a famous
Speaker 1: athlete or anybody that anybody knew. I didn't have a podcast.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was not. You know, it's a very
Speaker 1: different time, and you know, people write books all the time,
Speaker 1: and they come out and a couple of weeks later
Speaker 1: they're gone and they're a blip on the radar and
Speaker 1: nobody knows anything about that. And I knew that if
Speaker 1: I didn't really commit that, you know, that that that
Speaker 1: was most likely going to be the trajectory of my book.
Speaker 1: And so I said, now is the time I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm shuttering the law down completely and I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: step into this. And I didn't have a business plan.
Speaker 1: I didn't know how it was going to look or
Speaker 1: where the money was going to come from. I just
Speaker 1: trusted that this was the right path for me, and
Speaker 1: that's somehow we were going to figure it out. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's sort of that adage of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: when you have faith in the universe, it will it
Speaker 1: will conspire to support you. But you know, I was
Speaker 1: looking for the safety net and Julie and I were falling,
Speaker 1: and you know, we bounced off the pavement a couple
Speaker 1: of times before that net appeared. It was not a linear,
Speaker 1: you know, graceful landing. It's been you know, it's been,
Speaker 1: it's been bumpy. But ultimately the outage has proved true,
Speaker 1: just not in It just didn't unfold in the way
Speaker 1: that you know, would have would have provided us a
Speaker 1: little bit more comfort and ease. And the timing is always,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of an issue too, because you know,
Speaker 1: divine timing and our timing are two different things. So
Speaker 1: I think we expected that net to appear long before
Speaker 1: it did, and you know, we kept the faith, but
Speaker 1: there were moments where you know, we were questioning all
Speaker 1: of our decisions, and you know, we were at this
Speaker 1: moment where I told Rich, I go, we're either going
Speaker 1: to be we're on the precipice of complete annihilation or
Speaker 1: realizing everything we've ever dreamed together. And it could be either,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't going to be in the middle. It
Speaker 1: wasn't going to be in the middle. Well, it's congratulations
Speaker 1: on getting to the other side of it. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: at least for now, there's always another challenge waiting. UM
Speaker 1: A question I'd be interested in asking you guys about
Speaker 1: because it's one that comes up on the show a lot,
Speaker 1: and and that I think about is there's a paradox
Speaker 1: of striving and being ambitious and wanting more out of life,
Speaker 1: which you guys clearly clearly do and you go for
Speaker 1: the things that you want. There's that paradox with accepting
Speaker 1: where we are being content with what we have, And
Speaker 1: I'm curious how you work with that that paradox in
Speaker 1: your lives. Well, the really key part of this whole um,
Speaker 1: this whole journey, which we call it dismantling, is that
Speaker 1: through the dismantle. You know, Rich and I had a
Speaker 1: lot of these dreams when we first met and got together,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know, fourteen or fifteen years ago,
Speaker 1: and we had an idea for kind of a lifestyle company,
Speaker 1: and it had a different name, it was called GI Lifestyle.
Speaker 1: But we sort of had a lot of these ideas,
Speaker 1: um and uh. We thought that they were very altruistic,
Speaker 1: kind of nice ideas, but in hindsight, we still had
Speaker 1: some alchemy to go through. We had a lot of
Speaker 1: personal ambition that was still wrapped up in those ideas,
Speaker 1: you know. And so in order to be able to
Speaker 1: really serve really as true healers and as examples, you know,
Speaker 1: you can't read about, you know, going through hardship in
Speaker 1: a book and then speak to it. You have to
Speaker 1: go through it so that you can share with someone
Speaker 1: that's a little bit you know, maybe behind you on
Speaker 1: the path. So, you know, one of the key things
Speaker 1: of this whole experience of the dismantle is it rendered
Speaker 1: us on our knees in a very um horrible horrific
Speaker 1: and also divine way. So we had nothing to cling to.
Speaker 1: No external um source was seeming to feed us, was
Speaker 1: seeming to be there for us, and so we had
Speaker 1: to offer our life over in devotion to a force
Speaker 1: outside of ourselves and for you know me, that's divine Mother.
Speaker 1: So it was basically like you offer at the feet
Speaker 1: of this force. I live my life for you. I
Speaker 1: all these successes and all the failures, you know, all
Speaker 1: the car repossessions and all the book deals, it's all
Speaker 1: yours and I am simply yours to use. So direct me,
Speaker 1: lead me, guide me, and show me the way. So
Speaker 1: that then takes all the all the ambition out of it.
Speaker 1: So you're we're taking action from a very different place.
Speaker 1: You know, Rich worked until three in the morning last night.
Speaker 1: But we're so grounded in service that we we aren't
Speaker 1: working out personal ambitious ideals or ego trips or you know. Um,
Speaker 1: it comes from a different place and so um that's
Speaker 1: how we balance it is when we're doing, when we're working,
Speaker 1: or when we're sharing. We're rooted in that, in that
Speaker 1: beautiful experience of alchemy that uh sort of rubbed off
Speaker 1: all of the all of the mud from us and
Speaker 1: revealed that which we are at the core. How about
Speaker 1: from your perspective, rich Well, I mean that was a mouthful. Know.
Speaker 1: I think that that Julie hit it, hit it right on.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that that it's all about trying
Speaker 1: to get objective with yourself about that balance between ego
Speaker 1: and service, right. I think that Julie and I have
Speaker 1: fought very hard to be in a place now where
Speaker 1: you know, we're very blessed and privilege and grateful to
Speaker 1: have a platform and an audience of people who are
Speaker 1: interested in what we're doing. And I think it's very
Speaker 1: easy to get tripped up. And I think this kind
Speaker 1: of plays into, you know, the parable of you know,
Speaker 1: in the dichotomy of the good and the bad wolf,
Speaker 1: in the sense that you know, it's very it's very
Speaker 1: easy to tip into this is all about me, and
Speaker 1: it's coming from my ego and how can I you know,
Speaker 1: sort of advanced this to make me look good? And
Speaker 1: that's a dangerous place to go because this was all
Speaker 1: born again, not out of any kind of you know,
Speaker 1: business plan or intellectualized design, but because it was meant
Speaker 1: to be, and because Julie and I took this risk
Speaker 1: and allowed ourselves to kind of thrust ourselves into the
Speaker 1: unknown and and had a willingness to accept whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever would happen. And here we are in this place,
Speaker 1: and it's about remembering about how we got here and
Speaker 1: honoring that, and the way that we do that is
Speaker 1: by giving back. And when we're in that true, honest
Speaker 1: place of service UM, not because you know, we think
Speaker 1: service is the best way to get ahead, but because
Speaker 1: that's truly what this is all about. That I know
Speaker 1: that we will be taken care of. And the way
Speaker 1: in which we get taken care of, UM will not
Speaker 1: be how I imagine it, and it won't come when
Speaker 1: I want it or in the form that I would
Speaker 1: prefer it most likely, but I know that that we
Speaker 1: will be taken care of because that has been my
Speaker 1: experience over and over and over again. And so it's
Speaker 1: about arresting the ego, and it's about trying to get
Speaker 1: out of yourself and into the best possible way to
Speaker 1: be of benefit to the people who are devoting precious
Speaker 1: time out of their day to tune into our podcast
Speaker 1: or read something that I put online, or you know,
Speaker 1: pick up a book that we wrote, like that's a
Speaker 1: huge responsibility. And you know, when you put a book out,
Speaker 1: it's infused with energy. What is that energy, that potential energy?
Speaker 1: You know, is it deriving from the bad wolf? Is
Speaker 1: it deriving from the good wolf? And and you know
Speaker 1: what is it? You know what what is the causal
Speaker 1: effect of putting something like that out into the world.
Speaker 1: And That's something that I think a lot about and
Speaker 1: I'm always trying to, you know, improve We're human beings,
Speaker 1: were fallible, We're not perfect, you know, So it's it
Speaker 1: is that gray area of of it coming from both places.
Speaker 1: It's about tipping the scale and the proper balance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking. I mean, I agree with everything you
Speaker 1: guys said, and I think that it's one of those
Speaker 1: things that I think we have to keep working on,
Speaker 1: at least for me. Right It's like I I make
Speaker 1: progress with it and then I slide backwards and I
Speaker 1: make progress. And I've actually I was recorded in many
Speaker 1: episode for well who knows when it will come out,
Speaker 1: but I was talking about this idea of I think
Speaker 1: when it comes to spiritual growth and emotional growth, there's
Speaker 1: a thought that we will hit a point, something will happen,
Speaker 1: We'll have an experience, while have an epiphany, will have
Speaker 1: meditated long enough whatever that thing is where now it's
Speaker 1: all easy sailing. And the analogy I made is is
Speaker 1: a physical one, which is that there's no exercise you
Speaker 1: can do that then we'll make you in shape the
Speaker 1: rest of your life. There's no food you can eat
Speaker 1: that you'll get the nutritional benefits of the rest of
Speaker 1: your life. All this stuff, at least for me, and
Speaker 1: I'm realizing it more and more, is the consistent application
Speaker 1: of that effort, the consistent feeding of the right wolf,
Speaker 1: not once in a while, but going back to it
Speaker 1: over and over. Yeah, And I mean and the beauty
Speaker 1: of that is that the powers in the moment, right,
Speaker 1: it's in the now moment. So every every new moment
Speaker 1: you have a chance, you know, uh, really at a
Speaker 1: form of rebirth. So let's say that you that you
Speaker 1: chose the bad wolf. Well, in the next moment, you
Speaker 1: can change that, and you can you can change the reality.
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a process, and it happens over
Speaker 1: and over and over again. And you know, I think
Speaker 1: creation is always evolving, whether you're in a body or
Speaker 1: you you've left your body. It's it's it goes on
Speaker 1: and on and on and on. So it's no, it's
Speaker 1: not static, it's always changing. There's various points in the book,
Speaker 1: Julie where you write about I like that word you
Speaker 1: use their alchemy a little bit earlier, where you you
Speaker 1: kind of point to this idea that, like you just said,
Speaker 1: it's always then now we can always start over. We
Speaker 1: can always look at what happened and reframe it, set
Speaker 1: in a different light, try and transform these things that
Speaker 1: are in our lives in a positive way. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I mean I I really believe that, and I believe
Speaker 1: that there is an need or a space that really
Speaker 1: can serve us in a very highway, and that is
Speaker 1: to expand our compassion and our non judgment around food.
Speaker 1: So you know, people have so many emotions tied up
Speaker 1: in their food, you know, and they're you know, medicating
Speaker 1: themselves for many different reasons, and it makes it such
Speaker 1: a hot button, like you can't even talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: if you like asparagus and somebody doesn't like them, or
Speaker 1: you you know, you're not an eat meat eater or
Speaker 1: your paleo or your vegan or whatever. And I just
Speaker 1: feel like these labels are confining and they're not doing
Speaker 1: a service. And you know, uh, individuals are very unique,
Speaker 1: and people are at different places in their evolution in
Speaker 1: their own life path, and no one person is more
Speaker 1: valued in the eyes of consciousness than another. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not h the sun that is shining isn't discriminating
Speaker 1: on the gardener versus the lawyer versus the act or
Speaker 1: you know. So I just feel like we need to
Speaker 1: bring a lot of compassion into our food and into
Speaker 1: our homes and into our kitchen, and we need to
Speaker 1: allow people their own process and their own evolution. And
Speaker 1: you know, rich and I always say that, you know,
Speaker 1: in in yoga contra. You know, if you ask, you know, well,
Speaker 1: is uh is this good for someone? The answer is
Speaker 1: for whom? And when you know, it depends where who
Speaker 1: is the person, where are they living, what stage of
Speaker 1: life are they in, because you know, it might not
Speaker 1: be the right thing for someone to go all raw,
Speaker 1: it might not be the best thing for, you know,
Speaker 1: someone to eat a certain kind of diet um. You know,
Speaker 1: at the same time, it's individual. I'm going to ask
Speaker 1: each of you guys this question. I'd be interested in
Speaker 1: your answer. What is the lesson that's taken you the
Speaker 1: longest to learn, or that you're still working hard to
Speaker 1: learn right now. I suppose, oh man, where to even
Speaker 1: begin with that? There's so many for me. I got
Speaker 1: a whole bag of them. But I think for me
Speaker 1: I've traditionally always struggled with and I'm always trying to
Speaker 1: work on, is balance. You know. I'm I'm prone to extremes.
Speaker 1: My pendulum swings, you know, pretty deep, and I can
Speaker 1: vacillate from you know, all kinds of you know, extreme behaviors,
Speaker 1: good and bad. Um. But what what what eludes me
Speaker 1: is that ability to gracefully navigate life kind of in
Speaker 1: the middle in the macro. I think when you look
Speaker 1: down on my life, it looks balanced, but it's a
Speaker 1: it's it kind of vacillates between one extreme to the next,
Speaker 1: whether it's work or training, or family or relationship or travel.
Speaker 1: You know, I always tend to um, you know, it's
Speaker 1: always a struggle for me to kind of get the
Speaker 1: pieces to to come together in a in a more
Speaker 1: even handed way. And I'm getting better at it, you know.
Speaker 1: But I think that's my biggest lesson is in trying
Speaker 1: to embrace that way of living more than I traditionally have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's that's a challenge. And I like what
Speaker 1: you said though, if you look at it in a
Speaker 1: macro way, because there just seemed to be periods of life.
Speaker 1: You know, for everything, there's a season, right, And for me,
Speaker 1: I've had to get a little bit more comfortable with
Speaker 1: like this is the short period of life where this
Speaker 1: is really an intense focus and then it goes back
Speaker 1: over there and but on the whole over time. Am
Speaker 1: I am? I balancing my priorities in a in a
Speaker 1: good way, but I get stressed up by the same thing.
Speaker 1: How about you, Julie, Well, I'm a little bit different.
Speaker 1: I am. I tend to learn my lessons that I'm
Speaker 1: given pretty well, so I don't repeat them, but I'm
Speaker 1: always getting new levels of lessons. Um, So wouldn't say
Speaker 1: that mine is a repetitive one. I think the one
Speaker 1: that I am working with right now that I'm being
Speaker 1: shown and uh, and I don't really I'm not really
Speaker 1: through it as I'm being shown what it means to
Speaker 1: be uh, a feminine energy in this world where the
Speaker 1: feminine has been so dishonored, um and so objectified and
Speaker 1: so um. You know, Uh, really just um, you know,
Speaker 1: there's been huge violence that's been perpetrated against women on
Speaker 1: this planet for many, many many years, and um, in
Speaker 1: my earlier days, I wasn't really focused on that. I
Speaker 1: think I've been very sort of engineered to assist with
Speaker 1: the healing of the masculine. So I've been, you know,
Speaker 1: working with my boys and working with rich and and
Speaker 1: also the masculine withinside of me, inside of myself, you know,
Speaker 1: because we both have both energies inside of ourselves. But
Speaker 1: I think right now I'm on an exploration of what
Speaker 1: does it mean to be a fully embodied woman and
Speaker 1: what are the paradigms that I want to break around
Speaker 1: certain limitations and ideas that exists for women on the planet. Excellent,
Speaker 1: So I've got one more question for each of you,
Speaker 1: and then I think maybe you can tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about where to find the book and different
Speaker 1: things that you guys have coming up, and then we'll
Speaker 1: wrap up. But I would be interested in one of
Speaker 1: the things that I often think is the bad wolf personified,
Speaker 1: is the negative self talk. Those those voices that go
Speaker 1: on in our heads that are that are perpetual, habitual,
Speaker 1: and and often can be negative and I would like
Speaker 1: to ask you guys, how you handle negative self talk
Speaker 1: in your own life. Yeah, that's a great one. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, negative self talks has accompanied me, you know,
Speaker 1: my whole life. And I think the way that I
Speaker 1: have learned to deal with it, UM boils down to
Speaker 1: UH meditation and mindfulness practices that really UM help you
Speaker 1: understand that the idle chatter of your mind, which you
Speaker 1: know is not always your friend, UM, but is also
Speaker 1: not your higher consciousness. That there is a distinction between
Speaker 1: your thinking brain and your higher self. And the more
Speaker 1: that you kind of delve into meditation and mindfulness practices,
Speaker 1: the more you're able to identify that distinction and understand
Speaker 1: that there are tools available for controlling the idle chatter
Speaker 1: of your mind. In other words, just because your brain
Speaker 1: is telling you X, y and Z doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: you have to take that to heart or you know,
Speaker 1: entertain that or take it seriously. And it's about mastering
Speaker 1: the mind rather than allowing the mind to control you
Speaker 1: and UM, and I think, you know, the more that
Speaker 1: we can be aware of that, and the more that
Speaker 1: we can incorporate practices to better master UH that idea,
Speaker 1: I think that UM, that is probably the most powerful
Speaker 1: tool that I can think of to get a handle
Speaker 1: on that kind of you know, that kind of thing
Speaker 1: that I think a lot of people suffer from. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so too. And in regards to mindfulness and meditation.
Speaker 1: Great job with your interview with Andy from Headspace. That
Speaker 1: was a great one. I just listened to it today
Speaker 1: and thank you. We've we've got him coming up in
Speaker 1: the fall. But really I love that one, so great work. Thanks.
Speaker 1: How about you, Julie. Negative self talk so again again
Speaker 1: I have I don't really experience negative self talk. Um,
Speaker 1: it's not in my vernacular, doesn't occur for me. But
Speaker 1: I would say maybe my counterpart to that would be, um,
Speaker 1: some intense emotions um that are imbalance, that are coming
Speaker 1: from the little child aspect of myself. UM. So when
Speaker 1: those kind of things appear in my field, the way
Speaker 1: that I work with them is I do yoga breathing,
Speaker 1: so prani yama breathing UM, and it's a you know,
Speaker 1: a skull shining or a breath of fire, different kinds
Speaker 1: of prani yama. And I'll find that if I even
Speaker 1: if I'm in a very intense, you know, moment, and
Speaker 1: it's very it's very overwhelming. If I do this breathing
Speaker 1: for forty five minutes, the feeling is completely transformed from
Speaker 1: my body. It doesn't even exist anymore. So that that's
Speaker 1: an extremely powerful tool to transform emotional residue that comes up.
Speaker 1: Can you give us a minute or two uh starter
Speaker 1: course on that type of breathing, sir. The first thing
Speaker 1: that you could do is you could just do um
Speaker 1: alternate nostril breathing. So what you would do is you
Speaker 1: would take your ring finger and your thumb um take
Speaker 1: your two your index finger in your middle finger first
Speaker 1: actually and put it on your third eye center, and
Speaker 1: then you're going to plug um beginning with the We're
Speaker 1: going to breathe with the left nostril first, so you'll
Speaker 1: use your thumb gently plug your right nostril, and you're
Speaker 1: going to take a deep inhale in from the left nostril.
Speaker 1: You're gonna hold at the top and plug with the
Speaker 1: ring finger now the the left nostril, and then release
Speaker 1: the right thumb and exhale out the right nostril. And
Speaker 1: then you would inhale from the right nostril, hold at
Speaker 1: the top and then exhale through the left nostril, and
Speaker 1: so you would just continue this alternate breathing, long, deep
Speaker 1: fluid breaths. Try to make the breath as long as
Speaker 1: you can. And let's say you would inhale. Let's say
Speaker 1: you inhale for eight on the left, hold for four,
Speaker 1: and then exhale for eight on the right, and then
Speaker 1: you inhale for eight on the right, hold at the top,
Speaker 1: and then exhale for eight on the left and continue
Speaker 1: this kind of breathing and it balances your left and
Speaker 1: right sides out and it's extremely powerful just as a
Speaker 1: daily practice. Excellent. Well, Chris, and I just gave that
Speaker 1: a whirl. And for you left handers out there, those
Speaker 1: fingers will be reversed because I'm a left hander and
Speaker 1: I just noticed that as you were giving me the instruction. No, no,
Speaker 1: it's fine, Um, thank you for that. So yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: always looking for, um, you know, small things that that
Speaker 1: we can start to incorporate into our lives to help
Speaker 1: us get more in touch with physical things versus just
Speaker 1: being in the mind all the time. Yeah. Well, the
Speaker 1: breath is you know, extremely transformational, and it's available available
Speaker 1: to all of us, and you know, the it's a
Speaker 1: very very powerful force, so it works well. Guys, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for taking the time to come on
Speaker 1: the show. The book is available now and attest to
Speaker 1: the fact that it's beautiful with lots of great recipes
Speaker 1: as well as I would say a lot of um
Speaker 1: inspiration about about the ability to change our lives and
Speaker 1: make them better. Yeah, thanks so much, Eric, great talking
Speaker 1: to you, and we really appreciate the opportunity to to
Speaker 1: connect with you. Yes, right back at you. And there'll
Speaker 1: be links to the books and richest site on the
Speaker 1: show notes, and you can also go is it What
Speaker 1: is the best site to find you guys at best
Speaker 1: site is rich role dot com. That's where everything that
Speaker 1: that I'm doing is and you can learn about the
Speaker 1: book and my podcast and our products and everything there.
Speaker 1: If you're interested in Julie Uh, Julie's point of view
Speaker 1: and her music and her writings, you can go to
Speaker 1: her website which is Shrimati dot com. S R I
Speaker 1: M A t I dot com. UH. And the Plant
Speaker 1: Power Away is available everywhere online. And you know, we
Speaker 1: always try to encourage people to try to purchase it
Speaker 1: from your local independent bookstore because I think it's good
Speaker 1: to support our independent booksellers, so maybe that's something to
Speaker 1: bear in mind. Well, thanks so much guys, best to
Speaker 1: luck with the new book and we'll talk again soon.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having us on. It was
Speaker 1: lovely to spend the time with you. Great talk. Okay, thanks,
Speaker 1: take care, bye bye. You can learn more about this
Speaker 1: podcast and Rich Roll and Julie piet at one you
Speaker 1: feed dot net slash plant power