It’s Not Too Late: How to Transform Your Life at Any Moment

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  It's not too late; that's a story we've internalised

  Rich Roll, an ultra-endurance athlete, author and podcaster now 58, read a post he wrote six years earlier: athletic peak at 43, first book at 44, podcast at 45. 'At 30 I thought my life was over. At 52, I know it's just beginning.' He calls 'I blew it at 25' or 'I missed the window' a story we delude ourselves into believing.

• 02

  People change when pain exceeds the fear of doing something different

  He rejects 'people don't change', saying change is hardwired and the only impossible thing is not changing. The question is whether you'll have a relationship with your own internal arc of change. 'Change wants you to want it.'

• 03

  Rock bottom is whatever you decide it is

  'If the elevator's going down, there is no ground level' until you're dead. He had jail, two DUIs within six to eight weeks and a marriage that 'exploded on the honeymoon', yet none of those changed him. The day he finally became willing was an ordinary hungover morning, though he believes the pain of earlier lows built up to it.

• 04

  Over-achievement can mask a deep sense of unworthiness

  A shy, bullied kid, he found swimming felt 'womblike' and learned at 12 or 13 he could close a talent gap by outworking everyone. He got into all eight colleges he applied to, including Harvard and Princeton, and swam at Stanford, then the top men's programme. But he says chasing external rewards to feel worthy of love was 'jamming a square peg into a round hole'.

• 05

  Alcohol first felt like the comfort he'd always lacked

  He didn't drink until 20 or 21, after a high-school routine of 4:30am practice, school, two more hours in the pool and lights out at 9. His first buzz made the lifelong 'low-grade dissonance' evaporate, like being wrapped in a warm blanket, and he wanted that feeling all the time. He's grateful his alcoholism was severe enough to leave no choice.

• 06

  Recognise the 'moment of willingness' and act before it passes

  Before his 40th birthday he felt not just that he needed to change but that he was willing to, and wrote that such moments should be 'seized at all costs'. He says we're all visited by them. Cultivate awareness, and promise yourself in advance that next time you'll act rather than let it pass or commiserate.

• 07

  Mood follows action

  Change is 'an action-based affair'; you can't ruminate your way there. Behaviour comes first and thoughts and feelings follow, as when you only feel energetic after making yourself go to the gym. If you say 'I'll start tomorrow morning', 'you've already lost the plot.'

• 08

  Go all in if that's you, but know most people aren't

  His first step was changing his relationship with food: a seven-day juice cleanse as a reset, experiments with diets, and eventually a 100% plant-based diet that gave him energy he hadn't felt since his teens. He stresses he's extreme by nature and that his approach doesn't work for everyone.

• 09

  Self-care is the most selfless act

  It's the oxygen mask principle: your capacity to serve others depends on how well you're living. He got into ultra-endurance not to win but because it's 'the perfect template for self-discovery'. The lesson: we're all far more capable than we let ourselves believe.

• 10

  With someone spiralling, love the person, not the behaviour

  You can't make someone change, and he admits lines like Mel's 'Do you want to get worse before you get better?' wouldn't have landed with him. The instinct to rush in and rescue often backfires. Set boundaries: 'I love you. You're clearly suffering. What you're doing, I'm not down with.' His parents stopped talking to him, which he calls the most painful thing they had to endure.