This story is part of This Is 50+—an in-depth look at guys who are thriving later in life, with tips and tricks on how all of us can future-proof our bodies.
LONG TIME LISTENER, first-time caller.
That’s what it feels like doing this Zoom interview with Rich Roll, the Malibu-based podcaster, the author of Finding Ultra, and the man MH dubbed the World’s Fittest Vegan back in 2018. I feel like I know Roll intimately; after all, he’s been in my ears for years—on my commute, on road trips, on slow Zone 2 runs. Podcasting is like that: parasocial, a one-sided relationship where you develop a strong sense of connection with someone you don’t know. Some of the advice he repeats, Roll-isms if you will, such as drink a salad for breakfast, be intentional about your inner circle (because you’re the average of the five people whom you spend most time with), fall in love with the process, and commit to the primacy of consistency, even informs how I live my life. I want to talk to Roll, a self-professed late starter, about where his head is now at 57, a decade into his podcast journey and to learn more about the conversations he feels are most important.
Roll started his podcast in 2013 (yup, a year before Serial really popularized the format) and has stuck to a consistent approach: deep two- to three-hour dives with a compelling mix of athletes, doctors, trainers, researchers, entrepreneurs and other provocative-thinkers. Roll doesn’t spoon-feed his listeners with elaborate protocols of exactly how to eat, sleep, or train (although that kind of advice can be helpful). He says his goal is “to educate, inspire, and empower you to unleash your best, most authentic self.” His meta-skills are curiosity and empathy. In some ways, his podcasts are a step away from the constant hail of sound bites and could serve as a master class in genuine conversation.
Rich Roll exercises for about 90 to 120 minutes every day, emphasizing foundational work and strength training now, as well as lots of Zone 2 cardio.
Roll is not an elite doctor or esteemed professor. He’s a Stanford swimmer turned lawyer turned endurance athlete turned podcaster. His life—a little messy—forced the inner work that helps him go deep in the conversations that inspire people to do their own: He’s been divorced and struggled with alcoholism until rehab in his early 30s helped him become sober. During rehab, he says, he learned “to be honest and vulnerable and discovered the power of what happens when you have the courage to share your deepest, darkest truths about yourself, and release them.” He’s since remarried and is a father to four children. The conversations he leads tend to be full of nuance, and unlike helicopter podcasters, he lets the listener find their own meanings as he’s discovering his own.
As he tugs on his beard in our Zoom, he jokes that it “grew in all white and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel at 57. But I feel quite vital—and I can still go to the gym and lift as much as I could when I was in college. I look around and I see all kinds of athletes in their fifties and in their sixties doing incredible things that when I was in college would’ve just blown everyone’s minds that that was even possible. Now it just feels normal. I mean, if you had told me at 30 or 40 that I could be as fit as I am now, there’s no way I would’ve believed that. So I think our sense of possibility is opening up; I just don’t see the limitations.”
So what’s he doing with all the possibilities? Roll can really talk and has thousands of hours of conversational wisdom to draw from. For this story, I asked him to focus on five things feels he’s still improving at and that we should all be talking about. He gave six because he got on a roll.
Slowing Down Right
Roll isn’t training for any races right now, and considers himself a “tactical athlete.” He’s a participant in Dr. Peter Attia’s Centenarian Decathlon, a fitness strategy where you list the activities you want to be able to do when you’re 100 and calculate the strength, cardio, and stability levels you need to achieve now in order to do that later. It emphasizes Zone 2 cardio—where you run, ride, or row at light intensity, approximately 60 to 70 percent of your maximum heart rate. This builds your aerobic efficiency and raises your base fitness.
“Zone 2 is so in vogue again, but it’s something I learned about when running endurance races,” says Roll. He’s referring to how his coach, Chris Huth, told him to slow down his pace when training and told him: The prize never goes to the fastest guy, it goes to the guy who slows down the least. “It’s true for endurance sports and possible even truer for life,” Roll wrote presciently in Finding Ultra in 2012. “Zone 2 is almost an allegory for life. I’m somebody who’s always played the long game, but I’ve learned recently to never rush. It’s the little things done daily that accumulate over time that make a difference,” He leans into his riff. “The older you get, your relationship with time morphs. You think more in terms of decades, and years seem to pass very quickly. Too many people, especially in our younger years, are in a rush. They want to see what they can do in six months or, or even in a year. Our brains just aren’t wired to be able to what can be accomplished in a decade. I’ve said this many times before, but I think we all over-index on what we can accomplish in a year and completely under-index on what we can accomplish in a decade. Consistency is everything.”
Taking Small Steps
“It’s the tiny little things that you do every single day anonymously that if you miss them or skip them, wouldn’t seem like they’re making a difference. But those are the real building blocks that create the foundation upon which the goals that you’re trying to achieve to achieve are built. None of my successes have ever been quick, you know? They’ve all taken a long time. My message is always slow it down and be more consistent. Create something that’s sustainable, so you’re not going to run out of gas or burn out. Good habits—things like my plant-based diet, daily exercise—become easier the longer you do them because they become second nature.”
Letting Things Go
“I’m far less of a perfectionist or a control freak. I don’t hold onto the half-life of my negative emotions. I don’t really hold onto to grudges or resentments and things like that in the way that I used to. You reach a certain point in your life and if you’re lucky enough to have some level of success, you realize that all of those material things that you were gunning for for so long really don’t deliver on the promise of making you any happier. So I’m not operating under the idea that if I become more successful or make more money or whatever, that that’s going to make me happier. That allows me to invest more deeply in the things that do matter most, which are the basic things like my marriage, my family, my kids, my relationships, my sobriety.”
Give Attention to Friendships
I’ve also learned to prioritize my friendships more than I used to. There is s a common thing that happens to men when they reach this stage of life—after striving for so long and focusing on career and family and not having very much free time. You wake up, your kids are leaving the nest, and suddenly you realize you’ve lost touch with the friends that matter to you. It feels like college was yesterday, but in my case, college was like 37 years ago. Suddenly there’s this loneliness that can set in during this decade. The phone suddenly feels very heavy, because you haven’t spoken to these people in such a long time. Loneliness is a gateway not just to depression, but to decline—cognitive decline; physical decline. So rekindling those friendships is really important.
Aligning Your Purpose
“Journaling—whether it’s a mental dump like Morning Pages or making a gratitude list—first thing in the morning is a sacred practice of mine and essential part of maintaining my relationship with myself. On top of that, my participation in AA and that community is absolutely essential. I also have a men’s group that meets once a week. Seven guys get together and talk about our stuff and it’s moderated by a therapist. This has been going on for seven years. We know each other like the back of our hands, and we hold ourselves accountable to each other. What happens in the group stays in the group. We air our grievances and talk about what’s bothering us.
I think also with that loneliness, men keep a lot of stuff in. If I had any advice to give to men, especially as they age, is to find a way to talk about the stuff that’s going on inside of you so that you don’t feel lonely, and so that you feel like you’re have somebody who can see you for who you are and to help guide the decisions that you’re making.
Roll is a firm believer in letting go of the end game, and loving the process.
I don’t want to stereotype unfairly, but I think men have a lot of fear around opening up. Creating a structure or some kind of space where men are encouraged to be honest and vulnerable is something that I learned many years ago in AA. It’s so powerful. All the fears you have about letting people know who you really are, are not met with judgment or rebuke. They’re instead met with compassion. It becomes a very powerful experience that is in turn empowering for everybody. I just want everybody to have a sort of civilian version of what it’s like to be in an AA meeting where somebody gets up in front of a group of people and just tells crazy, embarrassing stories about stuff that they did, and they own their past. We all kind of like laugh and support each other on this path towards becoming better human beings. Fundamentally, it’s developing a relationship with yourself and demonstrating the courage to be honest with another individual. A lot of men are prisoners of their own emotional state because of social constraints and the way that we were raised to comport ourselves as quote unquote men.”
Letting Go of Constraints
“Our relationship with aging is changing so drastically: There is no ceiling. I guess what I’m really saying is the limitations that I imagine are social impositions as opposed to reality. We’re on the precipice of a really exciting time, not just with breakthroughs in medicine and science, but with human experimentation of older people getting out there and doing things. I think that’s going to not only continue, but accelerate.
Everybody should let go of whatever constraints or limitations they’re harboring in their mind about what it’s going to be like at a certain age. If you’re doing the little things and you’re building that foundation every single day, there’s no reason that when you’re in your fifties you can’t go out and continue to get stronger, faster, and crush it.”
+ 5 MORE CONVERSATION LEADERS
The Longevity Navigator:
Peter Attia, M.D., 51
With his best-selling book Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity and popular podcast The Drive, Peter Attia. M.D., is fast becoming the nation’s trusted voice for all things health-span related. The Austin-based physician is an exercise evangelist, promoting the four pillars of fitness for longer, better life—Zone 2 work, Zone 5 VO2-intervals, strength training, and stability drills—while also stressing the importance of mental fitness and finding your purpose so you have motivation for all those sweaty activities. As Dr. Attia recently told MH in a story about his new longevity playbook, “As we age, our physical and cognitive capacities decrease. However, there is no reason our emotional health—a critical pillar of health span—can’t increase as we age. One way: Do more things that bring true enjoyment (a key to happiness). Aim for experiences with other people that spark pleasure and make great memories.”
The Wellness Whisperer:
Common, 52
Although he’s best known for his music, acting, and activism, Common, born Lonnie Rashid Lynn, is flexing his voice in the wellness space with his new book And Then We Rise: A Guide to Loving and Taking Care of Self. The book is organized by food, body, mind, and soul, and Common shares his best practices, emphasizing how we’re all on different journeys and need to find out through trial-and-error what works best for each of us. He’s gently persuasive, whether he’s reflecting on the benefits of therapy. riffing on how to make mood-enhancing playlist, or giving tips on how to make vegan fare taste delicious and satisfying.
The Endurance Engine:
Cameron Hanes, 56
His best-selling book is titled Endure: How to Work Hard, Outlast, and Keep Hammering, but it’s the keep hammering that’s most on brand for hunter-and-ultramarathoner Cameron Hanes. Part memoir, part fitness manifesto, the book details how Hanes forged the discipline that enables his epic bow-hunting and ultra-running and hard-core exercising feats. Keep hammering also applies to his own motivation and self-care and as he writes in Endure, one of his mental hacks on long runs is to keep hammering on what he’s grateful for… “thinking about people—family, friends, colleagues—going through hard times, reflecting on those you’ve lost and honoring their memory, making sure the people you love know you love them, if you value someone’s friendship, tell them, if someone inspires you, tell them, and if you’ve hurt someone, tell them you’re sorry. Life’s too short to be bitter, prideful, or vengeful.” And you thought running was a mindless grind!
The Pivot Pioneer:
Michael Clinton, 70
What started as a book called ROAR: Into the Second Half of Your Life, the acronym spells out a four-step process to “Reimagine, Own Who You Are, Act on Your Plan, and Reassess Your Relationships,” has evolved into an active community of 50+ imagineers who are “rewiring instead of retiring.” Clinton, a successful Hearst executive, says one of the key concepts is life-layering, a tactic he leaned into when he realized that his identity was tied up in what he did for a living versus who he was as a person. “Life layering allows each of us to create a multileveled identity that is separate from work, partnership, or parenthood,” he says. It’s something anyone can start at any time in their life to enhance their existence. The question is: Who do you want to become? If you don’t know where to start with life layering, go back to your younger self and pick up the thread on a passion that you left behind.
The Big-Issue Amplifier:
Joe Rogan, 56
While we don’t always agree with the Spotify King’s medical advice (see the pandemic), the MMA-practicing, pot-smoking, maverick-question-asker is sometimes worth a listen because of the caliber of his guests—and what they’re compelled to share on his meandering podcast that explores the burning issues of the zeitgeist and where nothing is too weird or off limits. No one else can boast a guest list that’s included Elon Musk, Bernie Sanders, Mike Tyson, Eddie Izzard, Boyan Slat, Quentin Tarantino and even MH’s former fitness editor Michael Easter, author of The Comfort Crisis and Scarcity Brain, who discussed how much time you should spend time in nature and how to outsmart the caveman wiring of your brain. In fact, the JRE is a good bet if you’re looking for a good book recommendation!
This is just the beginning. See what else guys at 50+ are thinking, doing, and crushing here.
