The Rich Roll Podcast

Danny McBride is the writer, actor, and producer behind “Eastbound & Down,” “Vice Principals,” and “The Righteous Gemstones.” For 30 years, he's satirized the aggrieved modern male, the guy who grew up on Rambo and ended up working at Geico. His first collection of short stories, “Thrilling Tales of Modern Men,” puts it all on the page. We get into masculinity, disappointment, the manosphere, and...

Dr. Kelly Starrett is a physical therapist, New York Times bestselling author, and co-founder of The Ready State. This conversation explores human performance and a wellness culture that's become a kind of secularized religion, fixated on optimization while the fundamentals get ignored. We discuss the carbohydrate revolution, why the brain chooses safety over performance, the Enhanced Games, the p...

By 2020, veganism wasn't a fringe choice. It was mainstream. A few years later, the momentum faded. So what happened? I sit down with nutrition scientist Simon Hill for an honest autopsy – the overhyped meat alternatives, the broken trust around health claims, the sanctimony that turned people off, and how eating plants got tangled up with politics and masculinity. I cop to my own part in it too....

Ed O'Brien is a member of Radiohead and the artist behind his new solo album "Blue Morpho." This conversation explores the intersection of creativity and mental health, and the ways transformation so often mirrors the artistic process itself. We get into the prolonged depression that birthed the record, the dark night of the soul, childhood trauma, the surrender that comes with embracing uncertain...

I think a lot of us are quietly struggling with some version of self-obsession right now. So today I want to talk about a different way to think about all of it: fulfillment maxxing. I get into the comfort crisis, the three P's we keep chasing, and why discomfort might be the price of a meaningful life. And what it comes down to is this. Put the phone down. Take small contrary actions, make peace...

Rachel Entrekin is a professional ultra runner and three-time Cocodona 250 champion who just won the race outright. This conversation explores the mindset behind that feat. We discuss her shift from chasing outcomes to chasing joy, her "why not me?" self-belief, an unexpected encounter on the final climb, and her road back from an eating disorder. Along the way, she reminds us how much more we're...

Andrew Yang is an entrepreneur, former presidential candidate, and founder of Noble Mobile. This is a conversation about our phones, and what they're doing to us. We get into the machinery engineered to colonize your attention, the cognitive cost of leaning on AI, and why willpower won't save you. Andrew is great. This one is a Trojan horse for a more challenging conversation. Enjoy! Show notes +...

Roll On, but enhanced! Adam Skolnick came over to help make sense of the Enhanced Games, the pay-for-PEDs enterprise that just went down behind a Vegas casino. Think Idiocracy meets The Hunger Games, with Bryan Johnson calling the action from under a giant UV umbrella. It veers dystopian: looksmaxxing, narcissism dressed up as self-optimization, and the slow creep toward transhumanism. Ultimately:...

Paul Rosolie is a conservationist, adventurer, and the author of “Junglekeeper.” This conversation explores Paul's ardent case for ground-level conservation, the dire state of the Amazon, the indigenous wisdom that shaped him, his ill-fated brush with the Discovery Channel, encounters with uncontacted tribes, the crisis of meaning, and more. Along the way, Paul dismantles the notion that one perso...

Joe Hudson is an executive coach to people at SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, and Apple. He is also the creator of the Art of Accomplishment. This conversation explores avoidance, emotional fluidity, the Golden Algorithm, the inner critic, and why self-understanding beats self-improvement. At certain points, I become the subject. Joe has some thoughts about my patterns. There's a lot here. We barely tipto...

Julie Piatt is my wife, my partner, and the person I needed sitting across from me for this one. This conversation explores my recent experience with iboga, the root bark medicine used by the Bwiti people of Gabon for thousands of years. We discuss what led me there after decades of recovery and therapy, the confrontational nature of the ceremony, the rebirthing process, the role of the divine fem...

Andy Glaze is a firefighter paramedic, ultrarunner, and the author of “Smile, or You're Doing It Wrong.” This conversation explores the space between falling down and getting back up and how movement becomes a catalyst for emotional healing. We discuss Andy's descent into addiction, the inflection point that rerouted his life, the limits of running as a coping mechanism, the algorithm of transform...

Dr. Paul Conti is a psychiatrist and author of the new book “What's Going Right.” This conversation flips the script on a field focused on what's wrong, and asks a different question: what's going right? We get into the three human drives, the structure of self, self-sabotage, boundaries, and the simple goodness principle. Paul is a gift, and the new book is a beautiful offering. Enjoy! Show notes...

A solo riff today. No guest. Let's get into it. Today's conversation is about intentional living in a reactive world—the 4 AM routine, the creative power of constraints, and why mood follows action. Plus, the spirit animal I'd argue we'd all be better off adopting: the tortoise. I close with the story of an old teammate who broke a record at 50 that had stood for nearly a decade and what he unders...

David Epstein is a scientist-turned-investigative journalist, author of "Range," and one of the most rigorous thinkers working today. This conversation explores his new book "Inside the Box," the counterintuitive argument that limits, not freedom, are what unlock our best work. We cover the sharpshooter problem, the satisficing framework, attention in the algorithmic age, goal-setting versus oppor...

Dr. Stacy Sims is an exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist whose mantra – "women are not small men" – has reshaped how women approach their health. Recorded live with a studio audience, we challenge the conventional wisdom around fasting, cardio, and calorie restriction. In its place, a playbook calibrated for female physiology – heavy lifting, fed-state training, circadian eating, and a n...

Roll On, al fresco! Adam Skolnick came over. We went outside and let the conversation breathe. No studio walls. No agenda. Just two guys, some birds, and a wide-ranging hang that covers self-obsession as the enemy of growth, the dork problem in modern podcasting, and why 14 years in, we're playing again. Then we roam: Geese, Turnstile, Mike D in a Malibu parking lot, Julie Piatt's Manger debut, Ed...

Marcus and Amber Capone are the subjects of the Netflix documentary “In Waves and War” and founders of Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions. We discuss Marcus's 13 years in Naval Special Operations, the TBI and suicidal ideation that followed six combat deployments, the marriage that nearly didn't survive, the Stanford research into ibogaine treatment, and the mission they've built for veterans...

Nick Bilton is a Special Correspondent for Vanity Fair, a New York Times bestselling author, and screenwriter. This conversation explores the power of story — how tech titans like Jobs, Dorsey, and Musk wield narrative as a weapon, and why AI may be the first technology capable of wiping us off the face of the planet. It also happens to come from someone currently writing the book and screenplay f...

This is a solo AMA focused on my diet and fitness routine in the aftermath of spinal fusion surgery. I walk through the specifics — what I ate, how I trained, how I went from 207 pounds and completely atrophied to dropping 37 pounds while building lean muscle — and the salient lessons I've learned about patience, consistency, and approaching reinvention with a beginner's mind. There's also a broad...

Max Jolliffe is the Moab 240 course record holder, elite ultrarunner, and one of endurance sport's more unlikely origin stories. This conversation explores Max's multi-generational family history with addiction, the opioid crisis, his decade-long battle with heroin, the moment in a jail cell that changed everything, and how the tools of sobriety – surrender, teachability, the daily reprieve – beca...

Tiger Woods' recent DUI arrest has everyone asking why. I have some thoughts on that. And some personal experience. In this solo episode, I draw on my own history with addiction to illuminate what's really happening beneath the spectacle. Because the question most people are asking presupposes rationality. And rationality is the first thing addiction obliterates. This one goes deeper than Tiger. S...

Arthur Brooks is a Harvard professor, bestselling author, and one of the world's leading authorities on human happiness. This conversation explores what he calls a psychogenic epidemic — a crisis of meaning driven by the very technology we can't put down. We discuss the three macronutrients of happiness, why our brains have been rewired to miss what matters most, the striver's curse, and an ancien...

Simon Hill is a nutritionist, physiotherapist, and host of “The Proof” podcast. We dig into the newly released U.S. Dietary Guidelines: what changed, what the evidence actually supports, and how the final document diverged from the advisory committee's recommendations. The fine print reveals a factual error a first-year nutrition student would catch, and a notable omission that raises serious ques...

Dr. Tommy Wood is a neuroscientist, physician, associate professor at the University of Washington, and the author of “The Stimulated Mind.” I came into this one with a lot on my mind. My mother has Alzheimer's, and for two years I've been watching this disease dismantle someone I love. What Tommy gave me was something I didn't expect: not more cause for fear, but a genuine roadmap. Cognitive decl...