Mood Follows Action

Rich Roll was the All-American guy. He was an especially talented student-athlete, as he earned several NCAA Swimming Championships while at Stanford. After graduation, Roll dove head-first into work and was on the fast-track to becoming a Partner at his Law firm. On the outside looking in, it appeared that Rich had it all. On the inside, he was miserable. His purposelessness led him deep into drugs and alcohol. By age 31, alcohol had ruined friendships, killed his ambition and landed him in rehab. Not long after, he felt his body break down after merely trying to climb the stairs of his home. That was Roll’s breaking point. Nearly 15 years later, Roll has completely reversed his life trajectory. He has been a top finisher at grueling ultramarathon competitions including The Ultraman, a 3-day, 320-mile swim and bike race in Hawaii. He’s written several books. He hosts one of the world’s most popular podcasts, recently surpassing 500 episodes. Roll told me in our interview together one of the major reasons for his success: Mood follows action. “It’s action, not how you feel about the actions, that change your life.” It’s not about feeling tired when you want to get your morning workout in or distracted during the times you should be cold calling. It’s about overcoming that feeling to do what you need to do to get the job done. You can check out my full interview with Rich Roll here. This post is from our new series, Daily Momentum. Each morning, we send a short, inspirational post via email, blog and podcast. You can get it directly to your email here. You can subscribe on iTunes here.