Listen to Episode #11

S1E11 – Overcoming Self Sabotage with Joe Rignola

About our Guest

Joe Rignola is an entrepreneur, filmmaker, and best-selling author. He began his own health journey about 15 years ago while dealing with depression, severe digestive issues, weight gain, and blood sugar dysregulation.

After researching alternatives to the medications he was on, Joe was able to take control of his health and lose over 45 pounds by changing his diet and lifestyle. Filled with gratitude for his newfound health and energy, Joe went back to school to study health and nutrition so he could help others along their journey. In 2009 he founded Wellness Punks and began coaching clients 1-on-1, and in 2011 he launched his first online event called The Primal Cooking Workshop. This innovative event was part health summit, part cooking show, and featured some of the most well-known names in the paleo and primal space. After reaching tens of thousands of people with that single event, Joe dove headfirst into online events. Since then he’s launched, founded, and co-founded some of the most successful brands and events in wellness over the past decade.

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Podcast Transcript

Michael Roesslein: I am back again with Mr. Joe Rignola. Joe, we haven’t talked in a week.

Joe Rignola:

Yeah, we haven’t talked in about a week.

Michael Roesslein:

We already did the episode where we talked about the origins of Rebel Health Tribe, which, if you scroll back in the episodes, you can go back and check that out and figure out how this crazy organization came to exist in the first place, and then today, we’re going to talk specifically about Joe’s own journey and story, which we didn’t get into in the other one. So that was the healing journey of Rebel Health Tribe, I guess, or the origin story. And we’re going to learn about cool things like brain zaps.

Joe Rignola:

Yeah, wow.

Michael Roesslein:

And so I remember that from our chat years ago around it.

Joe Rignola:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Roesslein:

And usually, most of the guests in this season are doctors. And so I asked them if they wanted to be a doctor when they grew up, or if they were interested in health their whole life. We’re not doctors, so were you interested in health stuff growing up? Like, when I grow up, I’m going to have production companies that make cool health content.

Joe Rignola:

No. Although when I was a kid, filmmaking was definitely something I wanted to do. It was weird. As a kid, I can’t think of something… When you ask real young kids, they still come up with something. Like Mason… my nine-year-old still wants to be [inaudible 00:01:52] he has his own YouTube channel. And that’s what he wants to do. Like that’s it. He’s set. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m like, cool. Pretty good time to be alive if you want to create content on the internet. But there was nothing like that. I think it was just I punted school. I sucked really badly at school. And so I think it was just assumed that I was going to go into the family business.

Michael Roesslein:

Which is not doctoring?

Joe Rignola:

Which is definitely not being a doctor. It’s building houses, construction.

Michael Roesslein:

Okay.

Joe Rignola:

The problem with that is that I hated it. I didn’t want to do that. For a while there, I was an avid skier. So I thought maybe I’d want to do something with skiing. One of my earliest passions was I would take old ski videos and re-edit them and put different music to it. I would re-edit old ski videos and put Public Enemy music to it. That was my jam.

Michael Roesslein:

Hip hop skiing?

Joe Rignola:

Yeah.

Michael Roesslein:

I didn’t know you skied. How did we not talk about that before? You were good at skiing?

Joe Rignola:

Yeah, from sophomore in high school until I was probably about 26, 27, I would ski almost every weekend in the winter.

Michael Roesslein:

Wow.

Joe Rignola:

So yeah, I was nuts. At the time, the longer the skis, the better. It’s the opposite now, but I had these 200 K2 extremes and I would jump off cliffs and do crazy stuff and-

Michael Roesslein:

No shit.

Joe Rignola:

Yeah. It was a lot of fun.

Michael Roesslein:

Is there mountains in Long Island?

Joe Rignola:

No, not in Long Island. We have a garbage dump landfill here that’s pretty high that-

Michael Roesslein:

You can ski down?

Joe Rignola:

You could ski down it if you’re broken in the winter and we had decent snow. My brother-in-law and I always joke that we’re going to-

Michael Roesslein:

Oh you ski down and it’s not for people to ski on.

Joe Rignola:

No, it’s still a landfill.

Michael Roesslein:

Oh.

Joe Rignola:

We joke that we would break in there one winter and ski down there, but when we were younger and wouldn’t break a hip trying to do that now. So that’ll probably never happen. Somebody should do that though. If anyone’s on Long Island near the Brookhaven landfill and we get a dumping of snow, someone should ski that thing.

Michael Roesslein:

Ski it and send us the videos.

Joe Rignola:

Yes. It’s actually sadly at the highest point on Long Island.

Michael Roesslein:

I don’t doubt it and I don’t doubt that a landfill is probably the highest point where I come from in Illinois as well because there’s no mountains or hills in that state. So I’m pretty sure a landfill is probably our best bet for skiing as well.

Joe Rignola:

Yeah, absolutely. Upstate New York though, which everything’s upstate for me, but upstate New York, there’s some pretty decent skiing in New Jersey and-

Michael Roesslein:

Vermont?

Joe Rignola:

Yeah, Vermont’s pretty close by.

Michael Roesslein:

Okay. So you’re going to be a ski bum filmmaker perhaps.

Joe Rignola:

That kind of thing. Exactly. I thought I wanted to do that for a while. That [crosstalk 00:04:38]

Michael Roesslein:

There was some deejaying time?

Joe Rignola:

That was right… Yeah. That was a brief crossover. The skiing ended right around when the deejaying started.

Michael Roesslein:

It seems a natural progression. Skiing to deejaying.

Joe Rignola:

It’s so funny. I’ve had seven or eight, very distinctively, completely different lives. So yeah. I went from carpentry to skiing to deejaying and party starting. You know when you go to bar mitzvah or sweet 16 or a wedding, and you have those really annoying people who try to get everyone up on the dance floor.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah.

Joe Rignola:

That was me.

Michael Roesslein:

Of course it was.

Joe Rignola:

Yeah. Of course it was. So I was deejaying and MCing and doing some parties and stuff, but that’s how I met Marissa, my wife. So that was-

Michael Roesslein:

That’s a win.

Joe Rignola:

Literally the best thing that came out of that era of my life.

Michael Roesslein:

So deejaying led to marriage.

Joe Rignola:

Deejaying led to marriage and to two awesome kids

Michael Roesslein:

Thank you, deejaying. And then you were in financial stuff, right? Didn’t you get into…

Joe Rignola:

Real estate.

Michael Roesslein:

Real estate.

Joe Rignola:

Yeah, so when I was probably early twenties, mid twenties, I probably stopped doing the DJ thing. I went from a DJ to being a music producer, too. That was probably something you didn’t know. I had a music studio in my dad’s basement where I’d make hip hop beats for rappers.

Michael Roesslein:

[inaudible 00:06:11] and Puff Daddy.

Joe Rignola:

Yeah, exactly. No big deal.

Michael Roesslein:

Around that time, right?

Joe Rignola:

It was more like Puffy and biggie because east coast.

Michael Roesslein:

Ah, yeah. I forgot. I was in the middle of the country so both sides were acceptable.

Joe Rignola:

Well you were in Eminem’s territory. So I did that and then filmmaking, music, all that stuff was… These were all passions of mine, but I was always taught like, “That’s great you can do that, but that’s a hobby and you should do that on nights and weekends and you can’t really make a living doing that.” Which at the time, was probably pretty good advice because there really wasn’t the internet for the first fucking half of my life. Imagine anyone listening to this who’s under 30. Imagine that there’s no intro… Like imagine there’s no-

Michael Roesslein:

I think it’s unfathomable for them. I don’t know. That’s like us not having… Well, I don’t even know. It’s more pervasive than TV ever was. Like, it’s-

Joe Rignola:

Sure. Yeah. It’s taking away almost a central nutrient at this point. So there was really not too many options. You had to get a record deal or a book deal or be in Hollywood if you wanted to make movies. So that kind of thing. But nevertheless, it was sort of taught to me early on that that stuff was a hobby and I’m sure we’ll get deeper into that a little bit later. So I decided it was getting married. It was time for me to get a quote unquote, real job. So I cut my long hair and I knew I didn’t want to do construction. So I started selling the houses that my dad was building. And from there I got into real estate.

Michael Roesslein:

Oh, that makes sense then. I was wondering how you started selling houses.

Joe Rignola:

That actually wasn’t natural and a logical progression.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah.

Joe Rignola:

Pretty much everything else in my life. So I did that for probably about 12 years and I liked it a lot at first and I was really good at it and I was making really good money except I was spending more money than I was making. So no matter what, how much money I made, I just spent more because I-

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah, net zero, no matter how much the-

Joe Rignola:

Negative.

Michael Roesslein:

Gross went up, yeah.

Joe Rignola:

Yeah. Because I was generally unhappy in my life and so I figured if I just bought a new BMW or live in this mcmansion of a house, then that surely would make me happy. But the problem was that made me less happy because I was just going deeper into debt and couldn’t pay bills.

Michael Roesslein:

More stress.

Joe Rignola:

BMW got repossessed.

Michael Roesslein:

More pressure to sell more houses.

Joe Rignola:

Exactly. So working more. So, yeah, I got to the point where I was about 45 pounds heavier, was on medication for acid reflux. I had severe digestive issues. There were afternoons where I would drink a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. It was a little short bottles of Pepto I would drink an entire bottle of that in an afternoon. And I was on Paxil for depression. And even with all of that, I would still lay in bed most mornings, just not wanting to get out of bed. And what sucked about it was, on the outside, it looked I had it all. I had this amazing marriage, this big house, nice cars, successful business and everything looked really cool but on the inside I was dying.

Michael Roesslein:

Literally.

Joe Rignola:

Couldn’t muster the energy or desire to even get out of bed a lot of mornings. So that’s a really shitty place to be because it’s really hard for people to understand that especially when everything looks really cool on the outside everything’s hunky-dory on the outside, no one understands that. And somehow through that all, Marissa stood by me and supported me and lots of highs and lows. So somewhere around the mid 2000s, I really started getting burnt out.

I switched to doing real estate auctions. And what I would do is I would auction houses off for the homeowner, not foreclosures. Pre-foreclosures. So this was about the time the market started coming down and I recognized that the real estate market was coming down. So I switched to doing real estate auctions and I actually started making more money when the market came down than when the market was at its peak, because I was auctioning houses off for people, and I would sell it as “Let’s save you from having a foreclosure. I’ll sell the house for you before the bank forecloses on it.” And really what I was hearing is making money off of people who were…

Michael Roesslein:

Unable to afford their house.

Joe Rignola:

Yeah. Who were just at the worst part of their lives.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah.

Joe Rignola:

And I actually remember going into a house that I was supposed to auction off. It was a little three bedroom house. And they left a key for me. And I walked in, no one was home, but in the kitchen, it was a happy birthday banner. And there were toys around the house. I’m like, “What am I doing?” I can’t keep making money like this. This is a family. They’re losing everything. And I can’t. This is not a way for me to make money.

Michael Roesslein:

Hey, if you’re enjoying the show, make sure you head over to Rebelhealthtribe.com\kit. That’s K I T. And grab the RHT starter kit, which includes a sampler of four free videos from our professional masterclasses and webinars, the RHT healthy sleep guide, the wellness vault coupon book, which will save you money on all of your favorite health-related tools and resources, a professional product guide, and a coupon for 15% off your first order in our shop. That’s rebelhealthtribe.com\kit, K I T. And you’ll get all that delivered right away. Also, if you’re on Facebook, we’ve got a fun, engaging, and supportive group over there as well with thousands of health seekers, just like yourself. Just search for Rebel Health Tribe and you’ll find us. Thanks for listening. And now back to the show.

Joe Rignola:

So it was around that time when I wanted to come off of the depression medication, because it really wasn’t working. And I had a bunch of other pretty horrendous side effects. I went to the doctor and he said, “Yeah, just do half a dose for a couple of weeks. And you’ll be fine.” I wasn’t fine. The day after I stopped taking it, I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth with one of those battery powered toothbrushes and I all of a sudden felt this zap in my brain and it kind of went down into my hands and I look at the toothbrush and I’m like, “Wow, that’s a powerful toothbrush. That thing’s crazy.”

Michael Roesslein:

Are you saying you got an electric shock from the toothbrush?

Joe Rignola:

Yeah. At first, I thought that’s what it was. I was like, “All right.” So I put the toothbrush away, I walked out into the bedroom, and it happened again. And it literally put me down to my knees. It was really scary. I had no idea what was going on, but it felt like kind of sticking your brain into a light socket. Just shock that went through down into my fingers, down into my feet. The only thing that I had changed was that I stopped taking the medication.

Michael Roesslein:

Wow. Did you call your doctor?

Joe Rignola:

I went back to the doctor and he’s like, “All right, so we have to wean off more slowly, obviously.” I’m like, “No kidding. You don’t say.”

Michael Roesslein:

Is that a thing?

Joe Rignola:

It’s a known thing. Researching that was the conduit for me doing what I’m doing now.

Michael Roesslein:

So there were other people having brain zaps.

Joe Rignola:

Other people having brains zaps. And from there, it sort of led to, well, this is what I’m doing instead. I changed my diet. I started taking these herbs and these supplements. I started exercising more. I started getting outside, started learning all of this stuff. And this was still back when the internet was still fairly new. And so being able to research this stuff wasn’t as easy as it is now, but there was still some information out there. Ended up adopting something that looked somewhat Paleo-ish before Paleo-ish was a thing. Cut out most processed foods, started moving more, started exercising, getting better sleep. I’d actually go to bed before 1:30 in the morning, which was novel for me.

Michael Roesslein:

That was my entire twenties as well, was 1:30 in the morning.

Joe Rignola:

Yeah. So I’m probably now at this point in my mid thirties, and so all this kind of coincides-

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:15:04]

Joe Rignola:

And so. All this kind of coincided… I’m trying to remember the timing of it, but I started feeling better. I started losing weight and I was like, “I can’t keep doing real estate because it’s killing me.” Although I really like this health thing. I just feel like I’ve learned a lot. I started really feeling better, feeling more energetic, and I was like, “I want to help other people do this.” And so somewhere around 37, I went back to school for health and nutrition, which was a little bit scary because reinventing yourself, going back to school at that point, seemed really scary sold the house that we were in, and moved into a little one bedroom basement apartment. So it went from having a Porsche and a 3,800 square foot mansion to a little one bedroom apartment.

Michael Roesslein:

That’s a bit of a change.

Joe Rignola:

A bit of a change. Went back to work for my dad doing construction. At this point, I actually enjoyed it, started reading more, all around the same time, it all happened at the same time, reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. And I was raised Catholic, but I hadn’t been to church in 10 years, but started discovering the spiritual journey in the basement apartment and realizing, “Oh, wait a minute. I’m happier now in this tiny little basement apartment with our dog, than I ever was with all the cars, and the house and all the stuff.”

Michael Roesslein:

How long had it been-

Joe Rignola:

[crosstalk 00:16:48] It wasn’t even close.

Michael Roesslein:

When you switched to eating food and moving, and the supplements and things, was it pretty quick to get through the period of the withdrawal from the meds? How long did it take you to? Because that was probably pretty scary, you’re like 35 and your brain’s shooting electric through your body. That’s probably-

Joe Rignola:

It was pretty scary. Yeah.

Michael Roesslein:

A little disconcerting. Like, “What kind of path am I on right now? This is not sustainable.”

Joe Rignola:

Yeah. What I discovered is I wasn’t efficient [inaudible 00:17:19].

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah.

Joe Rignola:

But it probably to took four or five months to actually wean off of it without symptoms. I would wean off a little bit faster and then it’s like the brain zaps would come back.

Michael Roesslein:

Wasn’t there a time where you like passed out somewhere?

Joe Rignola:

Yeah. So that was earlier because, like I said, I was about 45 pounds overweight, and I was pre-diabetic, and so had some blood sugar issues, and I was out with a buddy of mine in a diner. And I think I probably hadn’t eaten much that day, and I was drinking coffee at about 11:30 at night, because that’s what you do. This is probably in my late 20, and I literally passed out in the middle of dining, like fell out of the booth, and my face hit the floor in the middle of the diner. So yeah, I had some health issues. And was not well, so that was another adventure. The passing out story is always a good one. Once I realized that I needed to be responsible for my happiness, that was big, really eye opening and the less stuff I had, the happier I was.

And then from there, like I said, I went back to school. Did the FTN thing like you, this was probably 2009. I started coaching people, I founded a company called Wellness Punks, talked about this a little on the last episode, but was coaching people when I went for a while, for like two years. And then did something a summit early on, when summits weren’t really that popular. There was this guy, Sean Croston who helped me, who had done a couple of summits up until that point before that, and not too many people were doing them.

And it was called Primal Cooking Workshop. We had a bunch of paleo and [inaudible 00:19:22] people via Zoom, teaching me how to cook, and we just recorded it all. And 22,000 people signed up to watch that, which was stunning to me. I had no idea we can get that many people. And I realized that I could either keep doing coaching one-on-one and work you with one person at a time, or I could actually reach 20,000 people at a time. So I chose 20,000 people at a time. And that was what launched this online marketing sort of era that I’m still in now. And it’s been incredible.

Michael Roesslein:

With Wellness Punks, you created the Primal Cooking Workshop, but also you were working with clients then too?

Joe Rignola:

Yeah. I was still working with clients, but I think once I was done with the Primal Cooking Workshop, because I realized that that was something it started to pull together all these things that I was passionate about; it was the health, I got to make these cool videos, and edit them together and make it into something that was really entertaining and fun. The feedback from people was really cool. They loved it. And I was like, “This is it. I actually get to do something that I’d love to do and make a decent living at it.” It was contrary to everything I was taught growing up.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. Work is supposed to suck.

Joe Rignola:

Work is supposed to suck. You’re supposed to work hard. Work hard, make a good living.

Michael Roesslein:

And resent it every minute.

Joe Rignola:

Exactly. Yeah, I tried that. It doesn’t work. Yeah. So, the thing is, 25 years ago, this wasn’t possible. What I’m doing now wasn’t possible.

Michael Roesslein:

So yeah. Same. I think about that sometimes, especially as we’re considering a move out of the country, into Europe with [Mira 00:21:11] basically retiring from nursing. And I can only do that because the internet, and because of what’s possible now. And so many people I know, their jobs and careers wouldn’t… Almost all my friends work online now. So it’s like, yeah, it’s just crazy. We’re really fortunate to have access to this thing that lets us create these things, because you would’ve been what bootlegging, VHS tapes out of the back of your trunk of car, “Buy my cooking videos.”

Joe Rignola:

Videos.

Michael Roesslein:

But editing, that would’ve been a bigger pain in the too. Because now there’s all the editing software, and all the tech, and all the things. Making movies then was a way different situation. So yeah, we’re really lucky, it’s really allowed a lot of connection and ability to reach large audiences with stuff.

Joe Rignola:

Stuff. Whenever I have a conversation with someone in their 20s, anyone under 30 who’s has some sort of passion that they want to do, it’s just trying to give them that perspective. I literally did not have the option to do what I love to do when I would is your age. At least, not to the extent or the ease that we can do it now.

Michael Roesslein:

No, you’d have to become a filmmaker, film school, like making movies for like Warner Brothers. Yeah, there wasn’t this YouTube thing and all these ways to get filmmaking out to the masses. There’s literally trillions of hours of video content that now exist on the internet that you can watch, that wouldn’t have existed before.

Joe Rignola:

Exactly, and it goes with anything, whether it’s, you want to write a book, you want to make music, you can just make music, you can just write a book and you can-

Michael Roesslein:

Self-publish it, and put the music on the Spotify and put it everywhere.

Joe Rignola:

Yeah, it’s stunning to me the opportunities that exist today. Anything. You could be a freak for like the Incredible Hulk, and figure out a way to make content around the Incredible Hulk and make a living at it.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. I have a buddy from college who has a YouTube channel now where he does show notes and Easter eggs and summaries and all that for three or four different shows that exist, and he’s got like thousands of YouTube followers that watch his show summaries and notes and things and whatever. And so he’s making money, watching the shows that he really likes to geek out on, and then making videos about it and then makes money. And the people who love the shows, love his videos.

Joe Rignola:

Of course.

Michael Roesslein:

And they learn more stuff about the shows than they knew about before. So everybody wins and yeah, it’s just a whole level of things that didn’t exist before. And so, you started, we did our thing and then we launched Rebel Health Tribe. And then I think your journey, like mine, I actually didn’t really have health issues. I got really out of shape and I was unhealthy, but I didn’t have brains zaps, I didn’t have digestive problem. I didn’t really have it. And actually I recorded with Dr. Winters yesterday, who, find her episode on here too. It’s it’s awesome. She’s a cancer survivor, and integrative oncologist, and I didn’t realize it until yesterday when we were talking, but my healing journey was one around depression, and it didn’t happen until later. Mine only happened in the last few years where I didn’t have the health one. I got into this because I wanted to be a trainer, because I thought getting paid to work out would be cool. And then it took me down a road that was training, then nutrition, then functional medicine and lab testing and whatever. And I just thought it was interesting.

I didn’t have a health thing that set me straight, or set me on my way. And-

Joe Rignola:

Yours was mental health.

Michael Roesslein:

Mine was mental health, but I didn’t even realize it until a few years ago when it almost killed me. But you had the physical health one, and the mental health and you tried to get through the mental health with the Paxil, but then the zaps, and then the physical health happened and the mental health improved. But then you had kind of a second healing journey that you’re kind of in the middle of right now, right?

Joe Rignola:

They kind of blend, I tried to get through the depression with Paxil and cars. It expensive-

Michael Roesslein:

Coffee.

Joe Rignola:

And a lot of coffee, I still do the coffee thing though. Yeah, it’s super interesting. So the health and mental health and spiritual journey, kind of all intersected at one point.

Michael Roesslein:

Because the mental health and spiritual end of things, wasn’t really part of when you had the brains zaps and you’re like, “Oh, I need to eat food.” And you started to research like nutrition and health stuff-

Joe Rignola:

Yeah, that didn’t quite come up yet.

Michael Roesslein:

The mental health, spiritual health journey, there wasn’t really forefront there. That was like, “How can I give my physical body what it needs so that I feel better?”

Joe Rignola:

Right, which was great, and it worked. But then, it wasn’t until I was in the little one bedroom basement apartment and I was making videos on YouTube, just funny videos and, and realizing that obviously I was off Paxil, I wasn’t on any medication, I was just living a more simple live and was just so much happier. And then, while we were in that apartment, we watch… Oprah did this thing with Eckhart Tolle to launch his book A New Earth. And it’s so funny now because I’m thinking about it, it was basically what we do. They did a series of webinars every single night. It was all online. It was a series of webinars.

Michael Roesslein:

Oprah beat us to it.

Joe Rignola:

Yeah. Go figure. Damn it, Oprah.

Michael Roesslein:

Eckhart Tolle’s books were one of my first too, in the whole mental, emotional, spiritual.

Joe Rignola:

Did you read Power of Now first?

Michael Roesslein:

No, I read A New Earth first and then I didn’t like Power of Now as much. And that’s the back court order that they were written in. And I was like, “Oh I skipped the first book.” And I went back and read the first book and I was like, “No, the second book is better.” But even then now, I haven’t read Tolle in 10 years, I would probably look at it way differently now than I did, then it was like my first introduction to a lot of concepts around, you aren’t your thoughts. That was a first time that anybody helped me see and have the realization that I am not the narration in my head.

Joe Rignola:

I should say, previous to that, I think I read this or watched The Secret. I still had a way bigger ego. I was an asshole?

Michael Roesslein:

So, “How can I weaponize this stuff to make more money?”

Joe Rignola:

Yeah, exactly. So I would like visualize, “I’m going to have this Porsche? Put the picture of the Porsche on the wall and, “I’m going to get this thing.”

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. The vision board of the Porsche, and the palm trees, and the islands and the jet skis, and yeah, I used to have that. I used to have a vision board that looked like that. That fancy stuff.

Joe Rignola:

But I would get it. I got it. We got the cars, and then the cars would get reposessed.

Michael Roesslein:

They took the cars away.

Joe Rignola:

“Tolle, I’m doing something wrong. The Secret doesn’t work.”

Michael Roesslein:

Need a bigger vision board

Joe Rignola:

I need a smaller one. I think that’s the key is a smaller one.

Michael Roesslein:

But in the last few years it’s taking quite another leap for you, because both of us, it was, man, talk about subconscious programming and stories and shit. The two of us, when we were first doing Rebel Health Tribe, we were moderately successful despite our own best efforts to sabotage everything we were doing because we thought that we sucked. That we weren’t good enough to deserve this, or have that or whatever, and-

Joe Rignola:

Well, it was that and it was almost feeling guilty that we can make money doing something we enjoy because we’re-

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah, that just feels so sideways. I still struggle with that. That’s still really weird to me that that’s a thing that you get to do.

Joe Rignola:

Now you have awareness for it. Right? Like you recognize when that comes up.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. And I can be like, “Okay, that’s the story and this is okay.” But before I just lived out of it and then that’ll show up in sabotage, and in depression, and in anxiety, and then panic attacks, “And everything’s going to go sideways, and I’m going to lose everything, and this is not going to work, and we don’t deserve this.” And I remember when we were-

Joe Rignola:

Procrastination, or just-

Michael Roesslein:

Oh yeah, straight out avoidance and not-

Joe Rignola:

Curling up in a ball and not wanting to-

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. Freezing, curling up in a ball. And we would kind of alternate who was in the panic attack at the time. And whoever was functioning would take over to do a little bit more of the stuff. But it was back and forth, set off each other’s panic attacks. Both of us had anxiety up the Wazu. That launch was crazy. It was pretty amazing.

PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:30:04]

Michael Roesslein:

Crazy. It was pretty amazing that we were able to function well and-

Joe Rignola:

I feel like when one of us were having a panic attack or it was just dysfunctional, the other came to the rescue. [crosstalk 00:30:21]. There was something that felt good about that. Like, I got it, I’ll handle it, I got it. Because it wasn’t like-

Michael Roesslein:

I think so, because Anir, your mom passed away during that time too. Your mom got sick and passed away, and Mira got sick for the first time, had her first flare, and there was just a lot. There was a lot of other things that were happening during the work stress, but it was definitely we both had deeply ingrained… Your dad’s an entrepreneur, business owner. My dad’s an entrepreneur, business owner. There’s things that come along with that, like work is supposed to be all the time and hard and you just grind it out and that’s what you do, and that’s what you have to do. And the more you’re working, the more valuable you are.

Joe Rignola:

Exactly. That’s it.

Michael Roesslein:

And the harder you’re working, the more valuable you are, and that things that aren’t hard or take tons of time are not valuable. That nothing can be easy.

Joe Rignola:

Yeah, I think we both still struggle with that, I think, that we’ve got to grind for [crosstalk 00:31:22]-

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah, but my dad is an accountant. Well, he’s sort of retired now. He probably works about as much as a normal person now.

Joe Rignola:

Still does my taxes.

Michael Roesslein:

But he still does lots of people’s taxes, but he’s technically retired. And growing up from January to April during tax season, he would be gone or working from the morning when I went to school until nighttime after dinner. All day, every day for days, sometimes seven days a week for February, March, April. And that was just what you do. And so I didn’t really think it was anything that strange when we started doing these launches and these things and I was working 12 straight hours a day.

Joe Rignola:

It felt good.

Michael Roesslein:

I was like, I’m being productive. This is what you’re supposed to do. Like I’m an adult now.

Joe Rignola:

Exactly.

Michael Roesslein:

And my wife is like, “What the fuck are you doing? Hello? I’m over here too.” And it was hell on my marriage and it was hell on my psyche and I wasn’t working out anymore, I wasn’t doing the things… I was just working all the time, but that was like, this is what you’re supposed to do. Now I’m in it, now I’m doing it like-

Joe Rignola:

Exactly. I feel great about myself now.

Michael Roesslein:

Kicking ass. We did a launch, we made money. I worked a thousand hours a week and this is what you do. This is awesome.

Joe Rignola:

Validation, baby.

Michael Roesslein:

And then it’s not though. It sucks.

Joe Rignola:

It sucks.

Michael Roesslein:

Don’t do that. And I still struggle. If I have a little space in my life, I put something else there because right now I’m in two full-time trainings, running Rebel Health Tribe sort of and launching a whole new giant project at the same time. All of those four things are like full time things and it’s totally bonkers. And I’ve identified that. And Mira is the voice of reason. When I’m going to sign up for another thing, she’s like, “Don’t do that. You don’t even have time for the thing you’re doing right now.” And I’m like, “No, I could do it. It’s cool. I’ll fit it in between 7:00 AM and 7:45 AM on Tuesday” because I know my-

Joe Rignola:

Time?

Michael Roesslein:

Literal everything.

Joe Rignola:

Of course.

Michael Roesslein:

And she’s like, “You’re going to not be able to do that.” And here I am right now three weeks behind on one of my trainings because I don’t have the time because I’m doing these other things. So future self will watch this, and I will not be doing that anymore, but that comes from the need to always be working.

Joe Rignola:

It’s kind of like you get that validation from that. You’re always looking for that validation outside of yourself by the things that you’re doing, things that you’re producing.

Michael Roesslein:

Because whenever you get a break, you don’t know what the hell to do with yourself, at least I don’t. I crave in long for these breaks, like, “Oh, what about if there was a day where I didn’t have to do anything?”

Joe Rignola:

And that last for about-

Michael Roesslein:

“Oh my gosh, that would be amazing.” And then by noon I’m like, I’m supposed to be doing 22 things. I got a to do a thing. So I’m learning slowly to relax and accept time off.

Joe Rignola:

When I exited Human Longevity, I literally started four companies in a month. Literally registered four different LLCs in a month. A marketing company, another wellness brand, another wellness brand, a coaching company. I was like, “I can do it all. I know I can do it all.” And same thing, my wife was like, “Well, how are you doing that?” And I just said yes to everything and it felt great. And I was getting home at 8:00 at night. Barely enough time to tuck my kids in to sleep, and that wasn’t working. So I’ve only said yes to a couple of things now, but it’s a lot right?

Michael Roesslein:

But it’s the programing and doing a lot of work around just being aware of it.

Joe Rignola:

Here’s what’s interesting, and if I could bring value to people listening, I intentionally try to take at least one or two Fridays off a month. And that week that I have it, I schedule it, I’m taking off that Friday. I am more productive on the first four days of that week than I usually am in three or four weeks because I can have this deadline. I know I want to take off. I promised my family I’m taking time off. So I find myself way more productive in the days leading up to a quote unquote day off. And the other thing is it feels really, really, really weird to schedule dinner with my family, but-

Michael Roesslein:

I do that.

Joe Rignola:

It’s the only way things happen. If it’s not on my schedule, it doesn’t exist.

Michael Roesslein:

I can relate to that.

Joe Rignola:

It feels really weird, date night with Marisa to put it on my calendar.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. I do it too. Mine’s every other Saturday. So-

Joe Rignola:

It’s just the way. And you know what? It just comes with the territory.

Michael Roesslein:

But I don’t even have weekends off right now. So half days off is like on a Sunday, I take a half day off to go hiking every other Sunday, but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel though. My classes are ending, my trainings are ending, and I’m not going to sign up for another one.

Joe Rignola:

Good.

Michael Roesslein:

But it’s that-

Joe Rignola:

I’m sure Mira will hold you to that as well.

Michael Roesslein:

It’s forcing yourself into, like you said, scheduling the Friday off and then promising that you’ll be off because for me, if I schedule it, it doesn’t matter. If I promise it to her, then I have to do it.

Joe Rignola:

Because then you’ve got the accountability.

Michael Roesslein:

So I’ve started building those things in and no matter how… And I have an hour or something in the morning, hour and a half-ish every morning. I get up before her, so I have an hour and a half every morning where I do some of my learning trainings and practice self-care stuff. I stop at a certain time every night. I go for at least two walks a day. I have non-negotiables that I build into my schedule that are non-negotiable and I keep to those now. And I used to just blow all those off. Now I’ll get behind on work and things before I’ll blow all those off.

Joe Rignola:

Super smart. I had a mentor, like an executive sort of coach, not too long ago. And he would say, “Take your recovery as seriously as you take the hard work.” And that’s been a huge shift for me.

Michael Roesslein:

I’ve done that too now. I book end my day with an hour, hour and a half of downtime and self-care things. I go for walks. I have an infrared sauna. So I go in there three times a week. I do two to three workouts a week. I go for a hike every other week.

Joe Rignola:

You still float?

Michael Roesslein:

Every other Saturday night.

Joe Rignola:

Same. Every other Thursday I float.

Michael Roesslein:

I just picked it up after a long time away because it was closed here for a year, but I just picked it back up. So I go every other for a float and a cryo session before the float. That’s weird.

Joe Rignola:

I’ve done that. I’ve actually done cryo to float. I wanted to do-

Michael Roesslein:

I like the combo.

Joe Rignola:

It’s cool.

Michael Roesslein:

Your body feels all weird when you get in the float thing. And it’s weird. I like it.

Joe Rignola:

I wanted because the place that I do cryo has the sauna too. And I was like, “Can I do a sauna and then cryo?” They’re like, “No idiot because you’ll be sweating and you’ll freeze like a ice cube.”

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. You’ll die. Don’t do that.

Joe Rignola:

No.

Michael Roesslein:

You can do the freeze, then the float, then the sauna or something like that, or the sauna then the float.

Joe Rignola:

We’re going to do. I think the cryo sauna float.

Michael Roesslein:

Because the sauna will loosen you up for the float. So your body will relax even more in the float. But I’m non-negotiable on those things now and I think your coach was right because people ask because I have way more on my plate right now than I’ve probably ever had total between the trainings and launching Anara and running Rebel Health Tribe. And I still help a lot taking care of Mira and cooking all the food and doing all the stuff around here. And it’s too much. It’s objectively too much. There’s more things than there are minutes to do it. And in the past, when we were working together with Rebel Health Tribe, that would make me like a crazy person filled with anxiety and unable to sleep, laying in bed, being like, “Tomorrow I have to do these 117 things and this thing.” And then I’d wake up in the middle of the night-

Joe Rignola:

I should be sleeping.

Michael Roesslein:

And then I’d wake up in the middle of the night and my brain would be like, “Ah, I got to do this thing tomorrow.” And then I would not fall back asleep and then I’d be a mess and I’d be tired. And then it is this cycle and whatever. And now I sleep almost eight hours a night. My sleep is solid. No panic attacks. I have low levels of anxiety. I don’t freak out. I’m doing more stuff than I was able to do then. But it’s because-

Joe Rignola:

And you’re probably doing it better and more productive.

Michael Roesslein:

And I’m doing it better and I’m not a mess to work with. I don’t give everyone on my team anxiety just by being in the room. And so the difference is the self-care. And we’ve both done a lot of work around being conscious of these things and I have more skills and practices to notice these things come up and then not go down that path because it’s just a story. But that self-care rigidity is-

Joe Rignola:

What would you say was the biggest or one of the biggest shifts in your mindset in general in over the past few years?

Michael Roesslein:

It was probably finally really genuinely realizing and believing that I’m not shitty on a real level.

Joe Rignola:

That’s what it feels like too.

Michael Roesslein:

Like-

Joe Rignola:

Or it was-

Michael Roesslein:

That I deserve the-

Joe Rignola:

Deserve it.

Michael Roesslein:

And I’m not shitty. That’s the only way because it started for me pre-birth. I’m adopted and when that happens, there’s a story that starts pre-memory that you’re unwanted. And so my whole life has been that I’m shitty or a fear around being shitty or letting people down or not deserving. That can manifest itself in a million different ways. And I’ve had some experiences with some really incredible facilitators, teachers, therapist types and people through the Luminous training that I’m in that have really helped me not just say the words I’m not shitty. I tried affirmations and things in the past and it just doesn’t do anything because the belief wasn’t behind it, but experiencing myself from the perspective outside of that and being able to see me as other peoples do, or what’s more real than what the story was. And that shifts everything. That changes everything then. And I know you’ve been through a lot of that too because-

Joe Rignola:

For sure. I would grow up and I would share a goal or dream or something with my dad and he would literally laugh at me. And my dad’s amazing. I have the greatest relationship with him. He’s doing the best that he could. And again, it was just sort of like I probably gave him enough reason to not believe in anything that I said because I didn’t follow through, I punted school, I-

Michael Roesslein:

Same. I came up with all these ridiculous things I was going to do and then I never accomplished any of them.

Joe Rignola:

And then I stopped. What was really cool for me is I stopped saying what I was going to do and then I just did it, and then I actually just did it and then showed them I did this was a lot more fun than saying I’m going to do it and then stopping half way.

Michael Roesslein:

I had the same pattern. I had all these things I was going to do and then tell them how I’m going to do it or tell everyone how I’m going to do it. And now I kind of wait until the thing exists and then I’m like, “Look at this thing.” Anara’s a little different. I’ve been talking about that for a couple years, but-

Joe Rignola:

But that’s real.

Michael Roesslein:

But that is a thing now. I had that same pattern and every time that I didn’t succeed with something, it reinforced that I was shitty.

Joe Rignola:

Of course. Of course.

Michael Roesslein:

And then there was the I told you so, like of course you didn’t do it because-

Joe Rignola:

Even if they didn’t say, I told you so-

Michael Roesslein:

No, no, no, this was all projected. Oh yeah, for sure. This was me making up words that they didn’t say and say them to me, but it was just me saying it to myself. It was just projecting it. [crosstalk 00:43:04]. So valuing myself and my own wellbeing.

Joe Rignola:

And then the other major shift I think for both of us in the past few years has been discovering plant medicine, which was a monumental shift.

Michael Roesslein:

It wasn’t as much of a discovery for me. It was kind of like a-

Joe Rignola:

Rediscovery.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah, because-

Joe Rignola:

You’ve done.

Michael Roesslein:

I’ve done psychedelics my whole life, but never-

Joe Rignola:

But not-

Michael Roesslein:

When I was younger it was like, “Oh, this thing can get you more high than weed. Try this.” It was a party type of thing. I took LSD and mushrooms because-

Joe Rignola:

It was fun.

Michael Roesslein:

It was fun, yeah. It was like a let’s do this. And it was a medicine ceremony a few years ago, two and a half years ago that flipped my suicidal depression on its head to the point where I didn’t even know how to be because I went from so depressed and hopeless to not. And then I didn’t even know how to live from that place. It took me readjusting how to even be. And that’s why I am in the trainings I’m in and that’s why I created Anara, was from that experience of that. And that all came from those rooms too. So I met Andrew who led me to Luminous in the medicine circle. I created brainchild of Anara with Anapala in a medicine circle. The only thing I’m doing that didn’t come from plant medicine circle was in [inaudible 00:44:32]’s training and he works with a lot of plant medicine. So-

Joe Rignola:

You’re connected.

Michael Roesslein:

There’s a connection there too. So that’s definitely been something really helpful. And I know that it shifted a lot of things for you too.

Joe Rignola:

I never experimented with psychedelics prior to that experience. It was about two and a half years ago also. We both kind of entered that around the same time. And I remember thinking I wanted to try this for probably five years leading up to that because I-

PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [00:45:04]

Joe Rignola:

… Thinking like, I wanted to try this for probably five years leading up to that, because I heard about it on Joe Rogan’s podcast. That was it. All I really knew about it was what I learned there. If the opportunity comes to me, and it’s at the right time, the right plants and all that stuff, I’ll do it, and that’s literally what happened. The ceremony came right to Long Island here, and I remember talking to Marissa about it and being like, “Hey, we have this opportunity to try this plant medicine, do a plant medicine journey.” She’s like, “Oh, that’s cool. We’ll learn about herbs and stuff like that and we can grow some…” I’m like, “No, that’s not quite what I’m talking about.”

Michael Roesslein:

Not exactly that.

Joe Rignola:

And it was like, “No, this is psychedelics.” And she’s like, “Why the fuck would I want to do that? Life’s good. I don’t need that.” But she never said no. And we did that, and it was like, “Oh, this is reality. This is how we’re supposed to be.” And I literally felt like Marissa and I were just meeting again, so it was really cool.

Michael Roesslein:

That’s cool.

Joe Rignola:

It’s made me a better dad, it’s made me a better husband, it’s made me a better person. It was five years of therapy in one night.

Michael Roesslein:

That’s where a lot of my self forgiveness, self compassion came from too, as well, and experiences that I wasn’t able to access because it’s too guarded.

Joe Rignola:

Of course.

Michael Roesslein:

It changes that.

Joe Rignola:

I think a lot of people think that if they need to clear some old trauma, that they have to relive the old trauma, and that, in my experience, hasn’t been true.

Michael Roesslein:

No. I mean there’s methods that would be more similar to that, but it’s definitely not necessary. In my understanding of it, because it’s been something I’ve studied quite a bit over the last two years now, it’s stored in the body. And there’s implicit and explicit memory, and implicit memory are memories you don’t recall necessarily, but the body remembers them, and that starts before birth. There’s actually research that shows that starts before birth, and so things that happen in utero, your body remembers. And so when something, even when you’re really little, like things that you don’t remember from when you’re really little, and when that gets triggered, when something reminds that memory, the mind, it remembers everything, literally, like a computer, and anything that triggers that will come up as a triggered response, and you won’t know why.

Joe Rignola:

Know why you’re triggering [crosstalk 00:47:38].

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. And so if you had to relive the traumas to process them, things like that would be impossible to heal, because you can’t recall them. And they’re not impossible to heal, because you don’t have to be able to recall things. It’s just the energy needs to be able to have a place to go, and the thing needs to be able to be felt. It’s the feeling, the sensation more than the thing that happened. And so, yeah, stuff will come up. I’ll feel stuff.

Joe Rignola:

Yeah. It’s not always easy. It’s not always pleasant.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. But that’s okay. We have this society where you’re never supposed to feel uncomfortable.

Joe Rignola:

Right, exactly.

Michael Roesslein:

Anything that’s painful or uncomfortable or scary is no good, or grief or sadness or anything. Like, oh, you’re sad? Have this beer. Eat this cupcake-

Joe Rignola:

Right. Watch this show-

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah, watch this show, zone out. Grief in this culture, this has come up in a few of the interviews, that grief is a taboo thing, like you’re not supposed to be sad or whatever. If somebody’s sad, everyone around them will start immediately trying to cheer them up, and it’s not for them, for the sad person. It’s for you, because that makes you uncomfortable with them being sad. And so when Marley, my dog, died last year… And this may sound silly to people, but he was my best friend. I had him for 13 years, and he saved my life more than once. And when he died, we leaned into it. I took two weeks off, and we just fucking cried all day. It was sad, and we went for walks and we reminisced and we told stories and it was so sad. I was so sad. Like, I didn’t know I could be that sad. I was so sad, and also, I was so alive to [crosstalk 00:04:28].

Joe Rignola:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). To be able to allow yourself to feel that without the [crosstalk 00:49:31]-

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. And the flowers were brighter and smelled better, and the colors were brighter and the sounds were everything, and because-

Joe Rignola:

When you don’t have that resistance to what you’re feeling, it’s like it takes a layer of the anxiety and stress away, and guilt, almost guilt for feeling the way you’re [crosstalk 00:49:43].

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah, it was fine. It was fine. We numb things or soothe things or avoid things or cope or whatever, but you can’t do that selectively. If you do it to one thing, it does it to all the things, and so letting the grief come through and the sadness also made me feel more alive. And then there were moments of actual joy and happiness and gratitude and things that… Otherwise, you’re just like, here.

Joe Rignola:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Roesslein:

If you don’t go down there, you can’t go up there.

Joe Rignola:

That’s right.

Michael Roesslein:

It’s the same type of thing. And up there isn’t better than down there. That’s a thing I’ve tried to learn too, is that grief is just as valuable of an experience as ecstasy. It’s the same thing.

Joe Rignola:

You can’t have one without the other. Exactly.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. And the medicine [circle’s 00:50:29] really… And people will say, oh, something isn’t authentic if you had to take some sort of substance to access it. And I’m like, it’s definitely really real, and it’s not that it’s like, oh, you need to be in that state all the time. It sets breadcrumbs. You access something, and then you’re aware of that.

Joe Rignola:

Yep.

Michael Roesslein:

And that awareness doesn’t go away. That comes with you.

Joe Rignola:

That’s the thing. And I know a lot of people who use ceremonies and different modalities as almost a crutch, like they keep [crosstalk 00:51:05]-

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. Or an escape, or like every weekend, they’re like, “I have to do…”

Joe Rignola:

Right. Exactly, right? What I realized is that, obviously, you’re doing work in the ceremony, but really what’s happening is you’re being shown the things that you’ve got to continue to work on. And so it’s like [crosstalk 00:51:19]-

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah, it’s the integration afterwards.

Joe Rignola:

Right. You open the door, but you still have to climb up the stairs and do the work after that. So if you keep going from one ceremony to the other to the other, I feel like you almost don’t do the integration work, which is the stuff that’s going to be sustainable,

Michael Roesslein:

Which matters, because that’s your life that you have to live all the time.

Joe Rignola:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. Living in Berkeley’s a trip, because there’s all these hippies and weirdos here, and I saw a guy with a shirt outside a couple months ago that said, “Bro, if this is your 100th ayahuasca ceremony, I don’t think it’s working.” Because there’s people in the psychedelic world that it’s an escape just anything else, they use it just like alcohol or anything else, where that’s not what it’s intended for. And these things are not necessarily for everyone, so this is not a blanket endorsement. I’m not telling everyone out there to go find some mushrooms. These are in controlled settings, in ceremonial situations with pre and post integration and a whole bunch of stuff, and I had a [crosstalk 00:52:14] lot of experience before I touched any of these things. So I just want to throw that disclaimer out there. It can be really unsettling for some people, and really [crosstalk 00:52:22].

Joe Rignola:

Don’t do 20 grams of mushrooms in the woods by yourself.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah, Dr. Winters. Go listen to that interview, we talked about some crazy stuff. But it’s been a trip, man. It’s been interesting, and we’ve kind of had parallel learning experiences and journeys along the way where we were both kind of a mess with anxiety and unworthiness and workaholism and making everything harder for ourselves, because harder is better.

Joe Rignola:

Yep.

Michael Roesslein:

And basically, being successful despite our own best efforts to sabotage everything we were doing, to both of us now doing things that we want to be doing, in a way that we want to be doing them-

Joe Rignola:

Most of the time.

Michael Roesslein:

Most of the time, yeah. Getting there.

Joe Rignola:

[crosstalk 00:53:15] Process, and I think it’s always a factor, so I think it always will be. Always just bringing that awareness to it and being like, oh yeah, I don’t need to do 18 things at once.

Michael Roesslein:

No. And booking time to not be doing things-

Joe Rignola:

Is really important.

Michael Roesslein:

Because we would’ve never done that before.

Joe Rignola:

Ever. It felt silly. It still feels silly sometimes if I schedule, like, I want to go home and play with my kids.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. I lived right by the beach in San Diego for most of that time, and I rarely ever went to the beach. And it was my life goal, until that point, to live by the beach, and then I did, and I made myself so busy that I barely ever got to go to the beach.

Joe Rignola:

That’s perfect.

Michael Roesslein:

And it’s sad. It’s just sad. What’s the point then? And with the move we’re going to do next, I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to move to Italy, and then not be in Italy, and then not do the things that you do there. I want to be present in my life. Life is not only work.

Joe Rignola:

It’s really interesting, because I’ve always struggled with delegating. Right? I’ll do it [inaudible 00:54:19], I’m a Swiss army knife. I’ll do it all. I’ll do it, I’ll handle it, I’ll do it my way. And so now, starting out with kind of a blank slate, I have the opportunity to start off with the mentality of that not only shouldn’t I do it all myself, I can’t and it’s not sustainable. It’s not scalable. You’ll limit your upside, you’ll limit the amount of success that you have, and then you limit your relationships and everything else in your life.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. And then what’s the point?

Joe Rignola:

What’s the point?

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. And then your health will suffer, and everything else will go to hell, and what’s the point? So yeah, totally interesting parallel journeys. There were times in these last couple of years, when you were working with Human Longevity and I was building Anora, and we kind of messaged, having some sort of realization after not talking for a while, and then the other one figured out the same thing around the same time, like, “Oh, I’m doing that too. I also take days off now. Weird.” Delegating stuff is brilliant. And figuring out that we don’t suck around the same time was cool, [crosstalk 00:55:29].

Joe Rignola:

Yeah. It’s so interesting, because the lessons kept coming up until I learned the lesson, right? The people kept showing up, people that I resent, massive amounts of resentment, until I realized, oh, they’re showing up because I’m supposed to learn this and get away from them.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah, but the more awareness you build, the less loud the thing has to be.

Joe Rignola:

Yeah, exactly.

Michael Roesslein:

Then you don’t need such obnoxious things in your life to tell you don’t do… You’ll pick it up earlier and faster and more subtly, not only from external people and things and situations, but internal body stuff too. I now know when I’m not taking care of myself for a few days, because I’ll feel like shit, where before I could carry on like that for months.

Joe Rignola:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. You [crosstalk 00:56:15]-

Michael Roesslein:

So if anything, the awareness gets a lot more refined, to where now if there’s somebody or something in my life that I get that feeling from, I’m just like, oh, nope. Gone. I don’t need this. I don’t need to take some sort of abuse to teach me some sort of thing anymore. That’s not necessary, because not all healing and growth needs to be painful either.

Joe Rignola:

Of course, exactly. Yeah, I think that’s a big misconception people have too.

Michael Roesslein:

Well, cheers to making life easier.

Joe Rignola:

Exactly.

Michael Roesslein:

Well, thanks for sharing all this-

Joe Rignola:

[crosstalk 00:56:47] My pleasure.

Michael Roesslein:

… And it’s been fun to be alongside of you on a lot of it.

Joe Rignola:

Likewise.

Michael Roesslein:

And even when we were anxious, nervous messes, we created [crosstalk 00:56:56] some pretty cool stuff and built an incredible community of people that… We still have tons of people around that were there for the Primal 90 launch six years ago that are in our Facebook group and posting every day. Some of those people are like family now, so it’s been really fun. And now you’re back with Rebel Health Tribe doing a lot of the copywriting and email stuff, so the people are hearing from you-

Joe Rignola:

It’s been a blast.

Michael Roesslein:

… Which is fun, and it’s fun for me, speaking of delegation, because that was something on my plate that I hate doing that you like doing. So it was awesome to hand that off, and it’ll be cool to see what comes next with working and collaborating and journeying and growing and experimenting, and who knows where we’re going to land five years from now?

Joe Rignola:

By the time people hear this, I think both of our new websites will be up and-

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah, yeah. What is that? Tell the people so they can go find it.

Joe Rignola:

WellConnected.tv would be the new wellness brand, and it’s just going to be a weekly series. Season one is all about gut health and the microbiome, and I’m just going to keep rolling out episodes and it’ll be fun, and I’m just literally giving those episodes away for people to watch.

Michael Roesslein:

Cool.

Joe Rignola:

I’m looking forward to serving the community and helping people as much as I can, which is why I started this whole craziness. I kind of lost sight of that for a while, but now I’m back.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah, helping people. And the more you do it, the more it comes back to you. So all the links will be down below, so check it out. Check out his new show, and go give it a little love and watch the episodes. I know a little bit of what’s going on and it’s going to be good. You’re going to like it. We’ll be sharing it too, but go check it out there, follow what Joe’s doing, and you can shoot him an email. If you get emails from us at Rebel Health Tribe, just respond to one of them. It’s Joe. So thanks, man. This was fun-

Joe Rignola:

My pleasure. Any time.

Michael Roesslein:

… And I appreciate you making the time, and it’s been fun to work together and get the life updates as we gradually, slowly, very slowly figure out life.

Joe Rignola:

All the craziness, I would not change a thing.

Michael Roesslein:

No, me neither.

Joe Rignola:

So thanks, brother. [crosstalk 00:58:55]

All right. Peace.

Speaker 1:

And this brings us to the end of today’s episode. Head on over to rebelhealthtribe.com/kit to access the RHT Quick Start Bundle, which includes four full-length presentations from our RHT master classes, two downloadable PDF guides, and a 15% off coupon which you can use in our retail shop. If you’re on Facebook, come join our Rebel Health Tribe group over there. And finally, if you like the show, please subscribe, leave a review, and share with your friends. Thanks for joining us, and we’ll see you again soon.

 

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