What Richard Marx Can’t Live Without

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been really diligent about washing my hands because what I do for a living requires me to stay healthy. And what we carry around the most, our phones, are the dirtiest thing. So I did a little digging and I found these wipes. They’re in my car, my suitcases, they’re everywhere. I clean my phone every day and it doesn’t mess with the screen at all. Same thing with my laptop. Takes ten seconds.

This is a travel essential for me. When I travel, which I do constantly, I want to get through TSA as quickly as I possibly can. It’s a little tricky for me because I had both my hips replaced about eight, nine years ago. I ding, so I have to go through the other machine. It’ll take more time if I’m wearing anything that has metal or snaps or whatever. Not only is this metal free, but it’s just the coziest, softest, best plane wear. They’re not pajamas, but they might as well be. I’m in Barefoot Dreams pretty much head to toe when I travel. Every time I go into the store in Malibu, I walk in and just want all of it. I wanna leave with the entire store. Eventually I wanna just lay on a beach somewhere and just be living in Barefoot Dreams clothes.

Maybe seven or eight years ago my wife, Daisy, and I went on a mission to eliminate alcohol-infused products. We heard that this mouthwash was considerably healthier than the other major brands. It’s one of the few things I have a “subscribe and save” on. We went from theMild Mintto the Whitening. I’m an older guy and I get compliments all the time now, like,Wow, your teeth are so white.

I’m on camera or onstage all the time. I haven’t had any work done thus far. I’m not against it, but I wanna do whatever I can to preserve my skin. I’m in the sun a lot because I’m kind of a sun guy. I hike all the time. I love being at the beach. And the fact is that the sun does does a number on you over time. Daisy found this Kiehl’s cream for me, and I’ve noticed a difference in my skin ever since I started using it. It’s little bits of maintenance, like smoothing out wrinkles.

My routine, when I’m in L.A. especially, is that I’ll have my High Brew coffee and go outside for 20, 25 minutes to soak in the vitamin D. Then I’m good to go. The thing that’s tricky about canned coffee drinks is that 99 percent of them are loaded with sugar. There are a couple of other companies who don’t have added sugar, but I found through my taste testing that High Brew is my favorite.

I’m not a cook, but I’m pretty good at baking. I got into it ages ago when my kids were really little and I was living in Chicago. I used to get these scones from Starbucks every once in a while, these iced lemon scones. They would constantly run out of them, so I would be setting my alarm to get there early enough to try to get a lemon scone. And one day I was like, I’ll just try to make them. I found a recipe for them online, and I started making scones or cookies at home every once in a while for my kids. Then when my mother, who passed away a few years ago, got cancer, I started making her things with sugar substitutes. In that search to give her a variation of things that she’d like, I stumbled upon Lily’s. I’m a huge fan. I’ll make this no-bake recipe where you flatten out a bunch of dates, put a layer of peanut butter, some pistachios, then a layer of this dark chocolate on top.

Aside from just really loving pistachios, I carry them with me on the road because as a vegetarian, leaning vegan, I have to really be mindful of protein. A little bag of pistachios gives me good protein, really good, healthy fat. And it’s a really easy thing for me to carry around that keeps my diet where it needs to be. I’m a big fan of these. You can get big bags and boxes of them, but Wonderful also make these little packets that are easy to throw in your pocket and take on the go.

When I was approaching 60, I wanted to do an overhaul on my fitness and my diet, get rid of added sugar. And I kept reading these studies about MCT oil. It gives you some really good healthy fats that you need, because it’s a form of coconut oil. I noticed that it helped with sugar cravings. I use it in my coffee every morning. You can’t taste it.

Tofu’s sort of like the life source for vegan and vegetarians. I became a pescatarian when I was really young. Then I sawBlackfishand I was like, I can’t eat fish ever again. I just can’t ethically bring myself to do it anymore. So it eliminated the prime source of protein in my diet. Tofu has no flavor, so it tastes like whatever you make it taste like. I happen to be married to a really good cook. So she’s really leaned into substituting tofu in all of our favorite dishes. She uses it for everything. We make sure that it’s always in our house as a go-to. And this particular one has the most protein in it for one block of tofu.

This was written in the early 1900s. James Allen seems to be the first guy who put pen to paper about what we have now started calling “manifestation.” No disrespect toThe Secret, but that never really resonated with me. But when I read this book, which was probably in 2013 or 2014, I was going through a real shift in my life. I was coming out of a really long marriage. I left Chicago and moved back to Los Angeles. Eventually I met Daisy, so I was in a new relationship. I was unpacking a lot of lifelong baggage and habits and things that were not serving me. I realized that it was the way I was thinking. I had read so many books about mindfulness, everything from Thích Nhất Hạnh to Tony Robbins — everything. And then I stumbled across this book that you can read in 25 minutes. It was the most succinct expression of the fact that the quality of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts. I’m not religious, so I call it my Bible. I refer to it, I carry it with me everywhere I go. I have a digital copy of it, so it’s always with me. It’s a good mindfulness practice for me to keep my thoughts where they need to be. I’m a fan of meditation as well, and this book is like its own form of guided meditation for me. I love the way he wrote it. I love the way he phrases things. It’s one of the true gifts of my life, that book. I’ve given it to 30 people, at least.