Transcript
00:00:00 The following is a conversation with Joe Rogan
00:00:03 that we recorded after my recent appearance
00:00:05 on his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience.
00:00:08 Joe has been a inspiration to me
00:00:11 and I thank to millions of people
00:00:13 for just being somebody who puts love out there in the world
00:00:17 and being genuinely curious about wild ideas
00:00:20 from chimps and psychedelics to quantum mechanics
00:00:24 and artificial intelligence.
00:00:26 Like many of you, I’ve been a fan of his podcast
00:00:29 for over a decade and now, somehow, miraculously,
00:00:34 am humbled to be able to call him a friend.
00:00:38 If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube,
00:00:40 review it with five stars on Apple Podcast,
00:00:42 follow on Spotify, support on Patreon,
00:00:45 or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.
00:00:48 Today’s sponsors are Neuro, Eight Sleep, Dollar Shave Club,
00:00:53 and Olive Garden, home of the Unlimited Breadsticks
00:00:57 and Brian Redband’s favorite restaurant.
00:01:00 Check out the first three of the sponsors
00:01:03 in the description to get a discount
00:01:05 and to support this podcast.
00:01:08 I usually do full ad reads here and never ads in the middle
00:01:11 but this time, I’ll just go straight to the conversation
00:01:14 with a bit of guitar first.
00:01:16 [“The Unlimited Breadsticks and Dollar Shave Club”]
00:01:54 Do you ponder your mortality?
00:01:56 Are you afraid of death?
00:01:57 I do think about it sometimes.
00:01:59 I mean, it does pop into my head sometimes,
00:02:01 just the fact that, I mean, I’m 53,
00:02:04 so if everything goes great, I have less than 50 years left.
00:02:10 If everything goes great, like no car accidents,
00:02:13 no injuries.
00:02:15 But it could happen today.
00:02:16 This could be your last day.
00:02:18 Could be.
00:02:19 That’s kind of a stoic thing to meditate on death.
00:02:22 There’s a bunch of philosophers,
00:02:24 Ernest Becker and Sheldon Solomon,
00:02:27 they believe that death is at the core of everything.
00:02:31 Wrote this book, Warm at the Core.
00:02:33 So does that come into play in the way you see the world?
00:02:37 I think having a sense of urgency is very beneficial
00:02:41 and understanding that your time is limited
00:02:43 can aid you greatly.
00:02:44 I think knowing that this is a temporary time,
00:02:48 that we have finite lifespans,
00:02:51 I think there’s great power in that
00:02:55 because it motivates you, it gets you going.
00:02:58 I think being an immortal, living forever
00:03:01 would be one of the most depressing things,
00:03:02 particularly if everybody else was dying around you.
00:03:05 And I think one of the things that makes life
00:03:08 so interesting and fascinating is that it doesn’t last.
00:03:12 You know, that you really get a brief amount of time here
00:03:15 and really by the time you’re just starting
00:03:17 to kind of figure yourself out, who you are
00:03:19 and how not to screw things up so bad,
00:03:22 like, time’s up.
00:03:23 The ride’s over.
00:03:24 What about from your, like,
00:03:26 from your daughter’s perspective?
00:03:28 Do you think about the world we’re in now
00:03:31 and what kind of world you’re gonna leave them?
00:03:35 I do.
00:03:36 And do you worry about it?
00:03:36 I do, yeah, I do.
00:03:38 I do when I see these protests and riots and chaos
00:03:42 and so much, so much anger in the world today.
00:03:48 And then particularly today,
00:03:49 I think because of the pandemic
00:03:52 and the fact that so many folks are out of work
00:03:55 and through no fault of their own
00:03:57 and can’t make ends meet
00:03:59 and these people feel so helpless and angry,
00:04:02 it’s a particularly divisive time.
00:04:06 It’s a particularly turmoil filled time.
00:04:10 And it just doesn’t seem like the world of a year ago even.
00:04:14 It feels very chaotic and dangerous.
00:04:17 And it’s a small thing,
00:04:19 like in terms of the possibilities of things
00:04:22 that could happen to the world,
00:04:23 like a pandemic like the one we’ve experienced,
00:04:25 it really just doubles the amount of deaths
00:04:27 on a bad flu year.
00:04:29 So it’s relatively speaking is a small thing
00:04:31 in comparison to super volcano eruptions,
00:04:36 asteroid impact, a real horrific pandemic
00:04:40 or one that really wipes out millions
00:04:44 and millions of people.
00:04:45 It’s stunning how fragile civility is.
00:04:50 It’s stunning how fragile our society really is
00:04:55 that something like this can come along,
00:04:57 some unprecedented thing,
00:04:58 unprecedented thing can come along
00:05:00 and all of a sudden everybody’s out of work for six months
00:05:02 and then everybody’s at each other’s throats.
00:05:04 And then politically everyone’s at each other’s throats.
00:05:06 And then with the advent of social media
00:05:09 and the images that you can see with the videos
00:05:13 of police abuse and just racial tensions
00:05:17 are at an all time high to a point where like,
00:05:19 if you asked me just five or six years ago,
00:05:23 like have racial problems in this country
00:05:27 largely been alleviated,
00:05:28 I’d probably say, yeah,
00:05:29 it’s way better than it’s ever been before.
00:05:31 But now you could argue that it’s not.
00:05:32 Now you could argue it’s no, it’s way worse
00:05:34 in just a small amount of time.
00:05:36 It’s way worse than it’s ever been during my lifetime
00:05:39 while I’m aware of it.
00:05:41 Obviously when I was a young boy in the 60s,
00:05:44 they were still going through the civil rights movement,
00:05:46 but now it just seems very fever pitched.
00:05:51 And I think a lot of that is because of the pandemic
00:05:53 and is because of all the heightened just tension.
00:05:58 What I liken it to is road rage.
00:06:03 Cause you know, people have road rage,
00:06:05 not just because they’re in the car
00:06:06 and no one can get to them,
00:06:08 but also because you’re at a heightened state
00:06:10 because you’re driving fast
00:06:12 and you know you’re driving fast.
00:06:13 You know, you have to make split second movements.
00:06:14 And so anybody doing something, you’re like,
00:06:16 what the people go crazy
00:06:18 because they’re already at an eight
00:06:21 because they’re in the car and they’re moving very quickly.
00:06:23 That’s what it feels like with today with the pandemic
00:06:26 feels like everybody is already at an eight.
00:06:28 So anything that comes along,
00:06:30 it’s like light it all on fire, you know, burn it down.
00:06:33 Like that’s part of what I think is part of the reason
00:06:36 for a lot of the looting and the riots and all the chaos.
00:06:39 It’s not just the people that are at work,
00:06:41 but it’s also that everyone feels so tense already
00:06:45 and everyone feels so helpless.
00:06:47 And it’s like, you know, doing something like that
00:06:51 makes people, it just, it gives people
00:06:57 a whole new motivation for chaos,
00:07:01 a whole new motivation for doing destructive things
00:07:05 that I’ve never experienced in my life.
00:07:07 And your better days when you see a positive future,
00:07:10 what do you think is the way out of this chaos of 2020?
00:07:15 Like if you visualize a 2025,
00:07:18 that’s a better world than today.
00:07:19 What is that?
00:07:20 How do we get there and what does that look like?
00:07:22 It’s a good question.
00:07:26 I can honestly say I don’t know.
00:07:29 And I wouldn’t have said I don’t know a year ago.
00:07:32 A year ago, I would have said, we’re gonna be okay.
00:07:34 As much as people hate Trump, the economy is doing great.
00:07:38 I think we’re gonna be fine.
00:07:39 That’s not how I feel today.
00:07:41 Today, I don’t think there’s a clear solution politically
00:07:45 because I think if Trump wins,
00:07:47 people are gonna be furious.
00:07:48 And I think if Biden wins, people are gonna be furious.
00:07:52 Particularly like if things get more woke,
00:07:55 if people continue to enforce this force compliance
00:08:01 and make people behave a certain way and act a certain way,
00:08:04 which seems to be a part of what this whole woke thing is.
00:08:07 The most disturbing for me is that I see what’s going on.
00:08:10 I see there’s a lot of losers that have hopped on this
00:08:14 and they shove it in people’s faces
00:08:17 and it doesn’t have to make sense.
00:08:18 Like there was a Black Lives Matter protest
00:08:20 that stopped this woman at a restaurant.
00:08:23 They were surrounding her outside a restaurant.
00:08:25 They were forcing her to raise her fist in compliance.
00:08:28 This is a woman who’s marched for Black Lives multiple times,
00:08:31 Black Lives Matter multiple times.
00:08:33 And the people all around her doing this were all white.
00:08:36 It’s all weird.
00:08:37 My friend, Coach T, he’s a wrestling coach,
00:08:39 is also on a podcast, my friend, Brian Moses.
00:08:42 His take on it is that black, and he’s a black guy.
00:08:45 He says, Black Lives Matter is a white cult.
00:08:47 And I’m like, when you see that picture,
00:08:49 it’s hard to argue that he’s got a point.
00:08:52 I mean, it’s clearly not all about that,
00:08:54 but there’s a lot of people that have jumped on board
00:08:57 that are very much like cult members.
00:09:00 Because the thing about Black Lives Matter or any movement
00:09:04 is you can’t control who joins.
00:09:07 There’s no entrance examination.
00:09:10 So you don’t go, okay, how do you feel about this?
00:09:12 What’s your perceptions on that?
00:09:13 Like the man who shot the Trump supporter in Portland,
00:09:18 that guy who murdered the Trump supporter
00:09:20 then the cops shot him.
00:09:21 That guy was walking around with his hand on his gun
00:09:25 looking for Trump supporters.
00:09:27 Just want, I mean, he’s a known violent guy
00:09:31 who was walking around looking for Trump supporters,
00:09:33 found one and shot one.
00:09:34 That has nothing to do with Black Lives Matter.
00:09:36 He’s a white guy, he shot another white guy.
00:09:38 It’s just madness.
00:09:40 And that kind of madness is,
00:09:43 it’s disturbing to see it ramp up so quickly.
00:09:47 I mean, there’s been riots in Portland every night.
00:09:51 Oh, excuse me, demonstrations for 101 days now.
00:09:55 101 days in a row of them lighting things on fire,
00:09:57 breaking into federal buildings.
00:09:59 It’s like, whoever saw that coming?
00:10:02 Nobody saw that coming.
00:10:03 So I don’t know what the solution is
00:10:07 and I don’t know what it looks like in five years.
00:10:09 But 2025, to answer your question,
00:10:11 like it could be anything.
00:10:12 I mean, we could be looking at Mad Max.
00:10:14 We could be looking at the apocalypse.
00:10:16 We could also be looking at an invasion from another country.
00:10:20 We could be looking at a war, like a real hot war.
00:10:25 To put a little bit of responsibility on you,
00:10:27 like for me, I’ve listened to you
00:10:28 since the Red Band, Olive Garden days,
00:10:31 that’s the very beginning.
00:10:33 And there was something in the way you communicated
00:10:36 about the world, maybe there was others,
00:10:37 but you’re the one I was aware of,
00:10:39 is you’re open minded and like loving towards the world,
00:10:44 especially as the podcast developed.
00:10:45 Like you just demonstrated and lived
00:10:49 this kind of just kindness,
00:10:51 or maybe even like lack of jealousy
00:10:53 in your own little profession of comedy.
00:10:55 It was clear that you didn’t succumb
00:11:00 to the weaker aspects of human nature
00:11:02 and thereby inspire like people like me,
00:11:04 who I was naturally, probably especially in like the 20s,
00:11:09 early 20s, kind of jealous on the success of others.
00:11:12 And you’re really the primary person that taught me
00:11:15 to truly celebrate the success of others.
00:11:19 And so by way of question, you kind of have a role in this
00:11:25 of making a better 2025.
00:11:26 You have such a big megaphone.
00:11:27 Is there something you think you can do on this podcast
00:11:31 with the words, the way you talk,
00:11:35 the things you discuss that could create a better 2025?
00:11:39 I think if anything, I could help in leading by example,
00:11:44 but that’s only gonna help the people that are listening.
00:11:50 I don’t know what else I can do
00:11:52 in terms of like make the world a better place,
00:11:54 other than express my hopes and wishes for that
00:11:59 and just try to be as nice as I can to people
00:12:02 as often as I can.
00:12:04 But I also think that I’ve fallen into this weird category,
00:12:07 particularly with the Spotify deal,
00:12:09 where I’m one of them now.
00:12:12 I’m not a regular person anymore.
00:12:15 Now I’m like some famous rich guy.
00:12:18 So you go from being a regular person
00:12:20 to a famous rich guy that’s out of touch.
00:12:23 And that’s a real issue whenever you’re talking
00:12:26 about the economy, about just real life problems.
00:12:30 It’s interesting.
00:12:32 It kind of hurts my heart to hear people say
00:12:33 about Elon Musk, he’s just a billionaire.
00:12:36 It’s an interesting statement.
00:12:38 But I think if you just continue being you
00:12:41 and he continue being him,
00:12:45 I think people are just voicing their worry
00:12:48 that you become some rich guy.
00:12:49 I don’t even know if they’re doing that.
00:12:51 I think they’re just finding,
00:12:53 the way he describes it, an attack vector.
00:12:55 Yeah, and I think he’s right.
00:12:58 I think they can dismiss you by just saying,
00:13:01 oh, you’re just a that.
00:13:03 You’re easily definable.
00:13:08 Right, but there’s truth to that.
00:13:11 If you’re not careful, you can become out of touch.
00:13:14 But that’s an interesting thing.
00:13:17 Why haven’t you become out of touch?
00:13:19 As a human off the podcast, you don’t act like a,
00:13:24 like you talk to somebody like me.
00:13:26 You don’t talk like a famous person
00:13:28 or you don’t act rich, like you’re better than others.
00:13:33 There’s a certain, listen, I’ve talked to quite a few,
00:13:37 you have too, but I’ve talked to a special kind of group
00:13:40 of people that are like Nobel Prize winners, let’s say.
00:13:42 They sometimes have an air to them that’s of arrogance.
00:13:47 And you don’t, what’s that about?
00:13:49 Well, you gotta know what that is, right?
00:13:51 Like that air of arrogance comes from
00:13:55 drinking your own Koolaid.
00:13:57 You start believing that somehow or another,
00:14:00 just because you’re getting praise from all these people,
00:14:02 that you really are something different.
00:14:04 Usually it exemplifies, there’s something there
00:14:08 where there’s a lack of struggle.
00:14:11 And I think a struggle is
00:14:14 probably one of the most important balancing tools
00:14:22 that a person can have.
00:14:24 And for me, I struggle mentally and I struggle physically.
00:14:29 I struggle mentally in that, like we were talking about
00:14:31 on the podcast we did previously,
00:14:34 you and I on my podcast said, I’m not a fan of my work.
00:14:37 I’m not a fan of what I do.
00:14:38 I’m my harshest critic.
00:14:41 So anytime anybody says something bad about me,
00:14:43 I’m like, listen, I said way worse about myself.
00:14:46 I don’t like anything I do.
00:14:50 I’m ruthlessly introspective.
00:14:53 And I will continue to be that way.
00:14:54 Cause that’s the only way you could be good as a comedian.
00:14:57 There’s no other way.
00:14:57 You can’t just think you’re awesome and just go out there.
00:14:59 You have to be like picking apart everything you do.
00:15:03 But there’s a balance to that too,
00:15:04 cause you have to have enough confidence
00:15:05 to go out there and perform.
00:15:06 You can’t think, oh my God, I suck.
00:15:08 I know what I’m doing, but I know what I’m doing
00:15:10 because I put in all that work.
00:15:11 And one of the reasons why I put in all that work
00:15:13 is I don’t like the end result most of the time.
00:15:17 So I need to work at it all the time.
00:15:19 And then there’s physical struggle,
00:15:21 which I think balances everything out.
00:15:23 Without physical struggle, I always make the analogy
00:15:27 that the body is in a lot of ways like a battery,
00:15:30 where if you have extra charge,
00:15:33 it’s like it leaks out of the top
00:15:35 and it becomes unmanageable and messy.
00:15:37 And that’s how my psyche is.
00:15:39 If I have too much energy,
00:15:41 if I’m not exerting myself in a violent way,
00:15:46 like an explosive way, like wearing myself out,
00:15:49 I just don’t like the way the world is.
00:15:52 I don’t like the way I interface with the world.
00:15:54 I’m too tense.
00:15:56 I’m too quick to be upset about things.
00:16:00 But when I work out hard
00:16:03 and I put in a brutal training session, everything’s fine.
00:16:07 Well, the first time I talked to you, Jerry, you were doing
00:16:13 Sober October.
00:16:15 And there’s something in your eyes,
00:16:18 like I think you’ve talked about
00:16:19 that you exercise the demons out essentially.
00:16:22 So you exercise to get whatever the parts of you
00:16:26 that you don’t like out.
00:16:27 There’s a darkness in you there,
00:16:30 like the competitiveness and the focus of that person.
00:16:34 That was a scary time in a lot of ways,
00:16:36 that Sober October thing.
00:16:38 Because my friends, we were all talking shit, right?
00:16:41 Because we’re competing against each other
00:16:43 in these fitness challenges.
00:16:44 And you had one point,
00:16:48 like you got a certain amount of points
00:16:50 for each minute that you went at 80% of your max heart rate.
00:16:54 And one day I got 1100 points.
00:16:57 So I did seven hours on an elliptical machine
00:17:00 watching the bathhouse scene from John Wick
00:17:03 where he murders all those people in the bathhouse.
00:17:05 I watched it probably 50 times in a row.
00:17:07 I went crazy.
00:17:08 I went crazy, but I went crazy in a weird way
00:17:11 where it brought me back to my fighting days.
00:17:16 It was like the same, that person came out again.
00:17:18 It was like, well, I didn’t even know he was in there.
00:17:20 It’s like they’re like an assassin, like a killer.
00:17:25 Like I felt like a different person.
00:17:30 Is it echoes of like what Mike Tyson talked about essentially?
00:17:34 Like the…
00:17:35 Maybe, but no orgasm in the oceans.
00:17:37 All the crazy shit that he was saying.
00:17:41 Is there a violent person in there?
00:17:44 Oh yeah.
00:17:44 Yeah, there’s a lot of violence in me for sure.
00:17:47 I don’t know if it’s genetic or learned
00:17:49 or it’s because during my formative years
00:17:52 from the time I was 15 till I was 22, all I did was fight.
00:17:56 That was all I did.
00:17:58 That was all I did.
00:17:59 All I did was train and compete.
00:18:01 That’s all I did.
00:18:01 That was my whole life.
00:18:03 Is it connected to…
00:18:04 So your mom and dad broke up early on.
00:18:07 Is it connected to the dad at all?
00:18:10 I’m sure it’s connected to him also because he was violent
00:18:13 and it made me feel very scared to be around him.
00:18:16 But I also think it’s connected in who he was as a human
00:18:20 is transferred into my DNA.
00:18:23 I think there’s a certain amount of…
00:18:25 I mean, to be prejudiced against myself,
00:18:30 I look like a violent person.
00:18:32 If I didn’t know me, even the way I’m built,
00:18:35 not even just the working out part,
00:18:36 just the size of my hands
00:18:38 and there’s the width of my shoulders.
00:18:41 There’s most likely a lot of violence in my history,
00:18:44 in my past, in my ancestry.
00:18:47 And I think we minimize that with people.
00:18:52 So much of your behavior, when I see my daughter,
00:18:55 I have one daughter that’s obsessive
00:18:58 in terms of she wants to get really good at things
00:19:01 and she’ll practice things all day long.
00:19:03 And it’s 100% my personality.
00:19:06 She’s me in female form.
00:19:09 But without the anger as much and without the fear,
00:19:14 she has loving household and everything like that.
00:19:16 But she has this intense obsession with doing things
00:19:21 and doing things really well and getting better.
00:19:23 What’s the point?
00:19:24 We have to tell her, stop doing hand springs in the house.
00:19:26 Stop, stop, come on, just sit down, have dinner.
00:19:29 Like one more, one more.
00:19:30 Like she’s just like, she’s psycho.
00:19:34 And I think there’s a lot of behavior and personality
00:19:42 and a lot of these things are passed down through genetics.
00:19:45 We don’t really know, right?
00:19:47 We don’t know how much of who you are genetically
00:19:51 is learned behavior, nature or nurture.
00:19:54 We don’t know if it’s learned behavior
00:19:57 or whether or not it’s something
00:19:58 that’s intrinsically a part of you
00:19:59 because of who your parents were.
00:20:02 I think there’s certainly some genetic violence in me.
00:20:06 There’s certainly.
00:20:07 And then you channeled it.
00:20:08 So you figured out it’s basically your life
00:20:10 is a productive exploration of how to channel that.
00:20:13 Yes, how to figure out how to get that monkey to sit down
00:20:18 and calm down.
00:20:19 There’s another person in there.
00:20:21 Like there’s a calm, rational, kind, friendly person
00:20:26 who just wants to laugh and have fun.
00:20:28 And then there’s that dude who comes out
00:20:30 when I did Sober October.
00:20:32 That guy’s scary.
00:20:33 I don’t like that guy.
00:20:34 That guy just wants to get up in the morning and go.
00:20:37 It’s like, I mean, when I was competing, it was necessary.
00:20:42 But it makes me remember.
00:20:44 I didn’t really remember what I used to be like until that.
00:20:48 It’s like when I’m working out seven hours a day
00:20:51 and just so obsessed.
00:20:53 And all I was thinking about was winning.
00:20:55 That’s all I was thinking about.
00:20:56 Like if they were working out five hours a day,
00:20:59 I wanted them to know that I was gonna work out
00:21:01 an extra three hours and I was gonna get up early
00:21:04 and I was gonna text them all.
00:21:05 Hey, pussies, I’m up already.
00:21:07 Take pictures, send selfies.
00:21:09 I was like, you’re gonna die.
00:21:11 I kept telling them, you’re all gonna die.
00:21:13 You try to keep up with me, you’re gonna die.
00:21:14 You weren’t fully joking.
00:21:16 No, I wasn’t joking at all.
00:21:18 That’s what was fucked up about it.
00:21:19 This is the scary thing when I interacted with Goggins
00:21:21 and what I saw in you during that time is like,
00:21:26 this guy, like, this is why I’ve been avoiding
00:21:30 David Ganga’s recently.
00:21:33 Is like, cause he wants to meet,
00:21:35 he wants to talk on this podcast,
00:21:36 but he also wants to run an ultra marathon with me.
00:21:39 And I felt like this is a person,
00:21:42 if I spend any time in this realm,
00:21:44 if I spend any time with a Joe Rogan of that sober October,
00:21:48 like, I might have to die to get out.
00:21:50 Like, there’s this kind of…
00:21:52 Yeah, there’s a competitive aspect that’s super unhealthy.
00:21:55 I mean, you saw the video that we watched earlier today
00:21:57 of Goggins draining his knee.
00:21:59 That would stop me from running ever again
00:22:01 because I would think in my head, okay,
00:22:03 I’m gonna ruin my cartilage.
00:22:04 I’m gonna need a knee replacement.
00:22:06 I would start thinking, I would go down that line,
00:22:08 but he is perpetually in this push it mindset,
00:22:13 what he calls the dog in him.
00:22:16 That dog is in him all day long and he feeds that dog.
00:22:20 And that’s who he is.
00:22:22 That’s one of the reasons why he’s so inspirational
00:22:24 and he’s fuel for millions and millions of people.
00:22:27 I mean, he really is.
00:22:28 He motivates people in a way that is so powerful,
00:22:32 but it can be very destructive.
00:22:35 I know now, especially after the sober October thing,
00:22:39 that that thing’s still in me.
00:22:41 I didn’t know,
00:22:43 so I really haven’t done anything physically competitive,
00:22:45 except one time I was supposed to fight Wesley Snipes.
00:22:48 It came out then too.
00:22:49 That came out too.
00:22:50 That got creepy too, but luckily that never happened.
00:22:53 But that was many months of training,
00:22:56 like training twice a day, every day,
00:22:59 kickboxing in the morning, jiu jitsu at night.
00:23:01 I was just going and going and going and going.
00:23:04 And I was just thinking just all day long.
00:23:06 But it fucks with all the other aspects of your life.
00:23:09 It fucks with your friendships.
00:23:10 It fucks with my comedy.
00:23:13 It fucks with everything.
00:23:14 Because that mindset is not a mindset of an artist.
00:23:18 It’s a mindset of a conqueror.
00:23:20 The conqueror. Yeah.
00:23:21 Destroyer.
00:23:22 That’s why it’s so interesting to see Mike Tyson
00:23:24 make the switch.
00:23:25 It’s clear that whatever that is, however that fight goes,
00:23:29 there’s a switch.
00:23:30 He stepped into a different dimension.
00:23:32 Roy Jones Jr. is coming on my podcast soon.
00:23:35 And Roy’s going to be on before the fight.
00:23:38 I’m so curious to see how it goes down,
00:23:42 but genuinely concerned.
00:23:44 Because Mike Tyson is a heavyweight.
00:23:46 And Roy Jones at his best was 168 pounds.
00:23:49 And that’s a lot.
00:23:50 I don’t know if Roy has that room in his house, mental house,
00:23:54 of where Mike Tyson goes.
00:23:55 I don’t know.
00:23:57 I don’t know if he has that room.
00:23:58 Mike doesn’t have a room.
00:23:59 He’s got an empire in there.
00:24:01 He opens up the door.
00:24:03 He opens up the door.
00:24:04 There’s a whole empire in his head.
00:24:06 And he’s in that firmly.
00:24:08 When he got out of the weed and started training again,
00:24:12 you could see it in him.
00:24:13 And by the way, physically, in person, he looks spectacular.
00:24:18 He looks like a fucking Adonis.
00:24:20 I mean, he looks ready to go.
00:24:22 It’s crazy.
00:24:23 Yeah, I watch his videos of him.
00:24:24 What about you?
00:24:25 Have you ever considered competing in jiu jitsu?
00:24:28 No, for that very reason.
00:24:30 I don’t want to get obsessed.
00:24:32 That’s my number one concern.
00:24:34 I had to quit video games when we were playing video games
00:24:36 in the studio.
00:24:37 I had to quit because I was playing five hours a day,
00:24:39 like out of nowhere.
00:24:40 All of a sudden, I was playing five hours a day.
00:24:41 I was coming home late for dinner.
00:24:43 I was ending podcasts early and jumping on the video games
00:24:46 and playing.
00:24:47 I get obsessed with things.
00:24:48 And I have to recognize what that is
00:24:51 and these competitive things, like competitive, especially
00:24:54 like really exciting competitive things like video games.
00:24:57 They’re very dangerous for me.
00:24:58 The ultimate competitive video game is like jiu jitsu.
00:25:02 And if I was young, I most certainly would have done it.
00:25:05 If I didn’t have a very clear career path,
00:25:08 it was something that I enjoyed.
00:25:09 My concern would be that I would become a professional jiu jitsu
00:25:12 fighter when I was young.
00:25:14 And then I would not have the energy
00:25:15 to do stand up and do all the other things
00:25:18 that I wound up doing as a career.
00:25:20 When I was 21, I quit my job teaching.
00:25:25 I was teaching at Boston University.
00:25:27 I was teaching Taekwondo there.
00:25:29 And I knew, and I also had my own school in Revere.
00:25:33 I knew I couldn’t do it right.
00:25:35 And also be doing stand up comedy.
00:25:38 I knew I couldn’t do both of those things.
00:25:40 There was no way.
00:25:41 You have to be cognizant of that obsessive force
00:25:44 within you to make sure.
00:25:45 Yes, I’d have to know how to manage my mental illness.
00:25:49 That’s a very particular mental illness.
00:25:51 And I think that mental illness, again,
00:25:54 my formative years from 15 until I was 21ish, 22,
00:25:59 those years were spent constantly
00:26:03 obsessed with martial arts.
00:26:05 That was my whole day.
00:26:07 I mean, I trained almost every day.
00:26:09 The only time I would not train is if I was either injured
00:26:11 or if I was exhausted, if I needed a day off.
00:26:15 But I was obsessed.
00:26:17 And so that part of my personality
00:26:20 that I haven’t nurtured is always
00:26:22 going to be there under the surface.
00:26:24 And when it gets reignited by something, it’s very weird.
00:26:28 It’s a weird feeling.
00:26:29 And it can get reignited with a video game.
00:26:31 It can get reignited with anything.
00:26:33 That obsessive whatever it is, that competitive demon.
00:26:38 Yeah, the way you talk about guitar,
00:26:39 I know you would fall in love with playing guitar.
00:26:42 But I think you’re very wise to not touch that thing.
00:26:44 That’s why I won’t golf.
00:26:45 I have friends who want to golf.
00:26:47 I’m like, mm mm, I don’t fucking want that thing.
00:26:49 So a lot of people ask me like,
00:26:52 what’s Joe Rogan’s jiu jitsu game like?
00:26:55 Like assuming that I somehow spend hours
00:26:59 rolling with you before and after a track.
00:27:02 I mean, what’s a good, you should at some point
00:27:05 show a technique or something.
00:27:06 That’d be fun.
00:27:07 Sure, I mean, I’ve got this technique online.
00:27:10 Oh, I saw you doing, I think, head and arm something online.
00:27:15 Yeah, I did.
00:27:17 I fucked my neck up doing head and arm chokes.
00:27:19 I did them so much that I,
00:27:21 because you use your neck so much with head and arm chokes,
00:27:24 I developed like a real kink in my neck.
00:27:27 And it turned out I had a bulging disc.
00:27:30 And, you know.
00:27:31 So you do it on that, just one side?
00:27:33 Well, it was, no, I could do it on the left side,
00:27:35 but I definitely am better on the right side.
00:27:38 The right side was my best side.
00:27:39 So if you were to compete, let’s say,
00:27:41 like what’s your A game?
00:27:42 Where would you go from standing up?
00:27:45 How would you go to submission?
00:27:46 Would you pull guard, would you take down?
00:27:49 How would you pass guard?
00:27:51 I don’t have good takedowns.
00:27:52 I was not a good wrestler.
00:27:54 So I would most likely either pull guard
00:27:57 or I would pull half guard.
00:27:59 Do you have a good guard?
00:28:00 Yes.
00:28:00 Are you comfortable being on your butt, on your back?
00:28:02 Yes, I’m very flexible.
00:28:04 So I have a good, my rubber guard is pretty good.
00:28:07 You go to rubber guard.
00:28:07 Yeah, I have good arm bars and good triangles off my back.
00:28:10 But I also have a very good half guard,
00:28:14 but my top game is my best.
00:28:16 I have a very strong top game.
00:28:18 Do you have a half guard?
00:28:19 Do you have a preference of like what kind of guard
00:28:21 and how to pass that guard?
00:28:23 And like, yeah, like, is there a specific game plan?
00:28:28 Like, do you?
00:28:29 Double underhooks from half guard is the game plan for me.
00:28:32 If I can get double underhooks from half guard,
00:28:34 I could sweep a lot of people.
00:28:36 Underhooks of what?
00:28:37 Sorry, the arms or the legs?
00:28:38 So half guard, lockdown, right?
00:28:41 Half guard, go into lockdown, double underhooks.
00:28:44 Got it.
00:28:44 Suck the body, suck the body.
00:28:46 Just pressure.
00:28:47 And yeah, massive pressure.
00:28:48 And then inch my way into a position we call the dog fight
00:28:52 and inch my way to a position
00:28:54 where I could get the person on their back.
00:28:56 Yeah, that’s what,
00:28:57 cause you did show me,
00:28:58 I still disagree with you about the tie thing.
00:29:01 The tie.
00:29:02 That you can choke somebody with it.
00:29:03 Oh, tie is wrong.
00:29:03 So wrong, so wrong.
00:29:05 Well, it’s not wrong with you.
00:29:06 With you, it’s wrong.
00:29:07 Cause you know.
00:29:08 No, I think there’s a system.
00:29:09 I have this thing, Madonna hair,
00:29:11 we’re gonna figure it out.
00:29:12 Okay.
00:29:13 But the.
00:29:14 There’s Velcro on the back.
00:29:16 No, but see, that’s, you’re just not the.
00:29:17 You’re cheating.
00:29:18 You’re not, you’re the exact, that’s cheating.
00:29:20 Yeah, you did, I did feel when you showed me,
00:29:24 I think you showed me the rubber guard
00:29:25 cause it’s still a guard.
00:29:27 That’s a little bit foreign to me.
00:29:28 I just felt that you can immediately feel,
00:29:30 not with the rubber guard,
00:29:32 but the way you move your body is,
00:29:34 you’re like a Shanji type of guy
00:29:37 who knows how to control another human being.
00:29:40 So like some people are a little bit more,
00:29:43 I would say agile and technical,
00:29:44 like playful and kind of.
00:29:47 Loose.
00:29:48 Loose and they work on transition, transition, transition.
00:29:51 You’re a control guy.
00:29:52 Like you know how to control position
00:29:54 and advanced position.
00:29:56 Donna hair is the same way.
00:29:57 He’s all about control.
00:29:58 My game is smush.
00:30:00 That’s my game.
00:30:01 Smush you, grab a hold of you.
00:30:03 Once I have you, why would I let you go?
00:30:04 That’s my thought is like, why would I let you go?
00:30:06 I just wanna incrementally move to a better position
00:30:09 until I can strangle you.
00:30:11 But I’m much more into strangling people
00:30:14 than anything else.
00:30:15 Yeah, which is a great MMA approach for jiu jitsu.
00:30:20 Well, too many people don’t tap when you get their arms.
00:30:24 And I’m not opposed to arm bars.
00:30:26 I love arm bars, but everybody goes to sleep.
00:30:30 And quit from pressure too.
00:30:33 I mean, quit mentally.
00:30:35 There’s nothing like that.
00:30:36 You can’t breathe.
00:30:37 If you’ve got a guy who’s like a really good top game guy
00:30:40 and he mounts you, and I’m a big fan of mounting
00:30:42 with my legs crossed, like a guard, like a top guard.
00:30:47 And so I can squeeze with both legs, smush.
00:30:52 And I’m just looking for people to make mistakes
00:30:54 and slowly incrementally bettering my position
00:30:57 until I can get something locked up.
00:31:00 I love jiu jitsu though, man.
00:31:01 I just wish it didn’t injure you.
00:31:03 Jiu jitsu is like, if your joints were more durable,
00:31:06 they could figure out a way to make joints more durable.
00:31:08 God, I could do jiu jitsu forever.
00:31:10 So much fun.
00:31:12 I actually, I talked to this roboticist, Russ Tedrick.
00:31:15 He builds, he’s one of the world class people
00:31:17 that builds humanoid robots.
00:31:19 You were interested in Boston Dynamics.
00:31:20 He’s one of the key people in that kind of robotics.
00:31:23 So I asked him the stupidest question of like,
00:31:25 how far are we from having a robot be a UFC champion?
00:31:31 And yeah, it’s actually a really, really tough problem.
00:31:34 It’s the same thing that makes somebody
00:31:38 like Danielle Comey on the wrestling side special,
00:31:41 because you have to understand the movement
00:31:42 of the human body in ways that’s so difficult to teach.
00:31:45 It’s so subtle.
00:31:47 The timing, the pressure points, the leverage,
00:31:49 all those kinds of things.
00:31:50 That’s just for the clinch situation.
00:31:52 And then the movement for the striking is very difficult.
00:31:56 As long as you’re not allowed as a robot
00:31:58 to use your natural abilities of having a lot more power.
00:32:03 Right, a lot more power and more durable.
00:32:06 Right.
00:32:07 The human body, like especially meniscus.
00:32:09 Like you see the heel hook game,
00:32:12 like everybody’s involved in leg locks and heel hooks.
00:32:14 Like all those guys wind up with torched knees.
00:32:18 Everyone’s got torched knees.
00:32:19 Everyone’s knees are torn apart.
00:32:21 And you don’t grow new meniscus.
00:32:23 You know, that’s like one of those joints where,
00:32:25 man, when it goes, those guys are 28 years old,
00:32:29 they’ve blown out knees.
00:32:31 Let me ask the ridiculous question.
00:32:33 What do you think, we’re talking about cops,
00:32:34 what do you think is the best martial arts self defense?
00:32:38 For sure, jiu jitsu.
00:32:39 Yeah, for sure.
00:32:40 Wrestling?
00:32:41 I think grappling, I should say.
00:32:43 Judo as well, especially in a cold climate,
00:32:46 if you get someone who’s got like a heavy winter jacket on,
00:32:48 my God, like judo’s an incredible martial art.
00:32:50 Plus concrete.
00:32:53 That’s the worst place to be,
00:32:54 with a heavy winter jacket with a judo specialist
00:32:57 and you’re standing up with them, oh my God.
00:33:00 But I think grappling,
00:33:01 because in most self defense situations,
00:33:03 it usually winds up with grappling.
00:33:05 You’re definitely better off, though,
00:33:07 knowing some striking,
00:33:08 because there’s nothing more terrifying
00:33:10 than when you go to take someone down,
00:33:11 they actually have takedown skills, but they can fight.
00:33:14 And so they have takedown defense
00:33:16 and they know how to fight,
00:33:17 and then you don’t know how to stand up.
00:33:19 Like the worst thing in the world
00:33:20 is seeing someone like reaching
00:33:21 who doesn’t know how to do striking and someone cracks you.
00:33:25 What about all that Krav Maga talk,
00:33:27 which is like, you know, the whole line of argument
00:33:30 that says that jiu jitsu and wrestling
00:33:31 and all of these sports, they fundamentally take you away
00:33:35 from the nature of violence.
00:33:36 So they’re just teaching you how to play
00:33:39 versus the reality of violence
00:33:44 that is involved in like a self defense situation
00:33:47 that is a totally different set of skills would be needed.
00:33:52 In general, the people that say that jiu jitsu
00:33:55 or other martial arts, it’s more of a sport
00:33:59 and they don’t really understand violence.
00:34:03 In general, the people that say that suck.
00:34:08 Anybody who thinks like, someone’s like,
00:34:10 you know, hey man, I’ll just bite you.
00:34:12 I’m like, are you gonna bite me?
00:34:13 Okay.
00:34:14 Do you think I’m gonna bite you too?
00:34:15 What do you think of that?
00:34:16 What if I punch you in your fucking face?
00:34:18 You think you’re still gonna bite me
00:34:19 when you can’t even see?
00:34:21 When you barely even know you’re alive
00:34:24 and I choke you unconscious?
00:34:25 If someone’s really good at jiu jitsu,
00:34:27 good luck stabbing them with your keys.
00:34:29 You know, you don’t have a chance.
00:34:31 You don’t have a chance.
00:34:32 If someone’s much better than you
00:34:33 and they trip you and get you on your back
00:34:35 and then they fucking elbow you in your face
00:34:37 and then get a head and arm choke on you,
00:34:39 all that crap, my gosh, it’s out the window, son.
00:34:41 You’re way better off learning what works on trained killers.
00:34:47 Like this whole idea that you’re gonna poke someone
00:34:48 in the eye and then you’re gonna kick them in the nuts.
00:34:50 Like you’re going through these drills
00:34:53 that yeah, it’s good to know what to do
00:34:55 if you run into someone who doesn’t know how to fight.
00:34:57 It’s way better to know what to do
00:35:00 to someone who knows how to fight.
00:35:02 That’s the best thing.
00:35:03 Learn how to fight against people who know how to fight.
00:35:07 Like all that practice self defense
00:35:09 and they go, it’s gonna come at you with a knife.
00:35:11 You’re gonna grab the wrist and do that.
00:35:13 Like it’s good to know self defense,
00:35:16 but it’s much more important
00:35:18 to understand martial arts comprehensively.
00:35:22 When you understand martial arts comprehensively,
00:35:24 like there’s no, I shouldn’t say there’s no Krav Maga guys,
00:35:27 but it would be shocking if a Krav Maga guy
00:35:32 and a mixed martial arts guy had a fight
00:35:34 and the mixed martial arts guy
00:35:35 who’s a trained killer all around didn’t fuck that guy up.
00:35:39 That’s what I would expect would happen.
00:35:42 I would not think that some guy
00:35:44 who has a little bit of this and a little bit of that
00:35:48 and prepares for the streets is gonna be able
00:35:50 to handle a person who trains with killers
00:35:53 on a day to day basis,
00:35:54 who rolls with jujitsu black belts,
00:35:56 who trains with Muay Thai champions.
00:35:58 Like the best martial arts are the martial arts
00:36:01 that work on martial artists,
00:36:03 not the martial arts that work on untrained people.
00:36:06 What about, we’re in Texas now.
00:36:08 What about guns?
00:36:09 Well, that’s the best martial art.
00:36:10 No, but would you, like in this crazy time,
00:36:14 should people carry guns?
00:36:17 It’s not a bad idea to have a gun
00:36:19 because if you need a gun, you have a gun.
00:36:22 And if you don’t need a gun,
00:36:24 if you’re a person with self control,
00:36:25 you’re not gonna use it.
00:36:26 You’re not gonna just randomly use it,
00:36:28 but you have something to protect you.
00:36:30 This is the whole idea of the Second Amendment.
00:36:32 The whole idea of the Second Amendment
00:36:33 gets distorted by mass shootings
00:36:34 or by terrible people who murder people
00:36:37 and do terrible things.
00:36:38 But all those things are real,
00:36:40 but they don’t take away from the fundamental efficacy
00:36:46 of having a firearm and defending your family
00:36:49 or defending your life.
00:36:50 And there are real live situations
00:36:53 where people have had firearms
00:36:55 and it’s protected them or their loved ones
00:36:58 or they’ve stopped shooters.
00:36:59 There’s many of these stories,
00:37:01 but people don’t like those stories
00:37:02 because then it tends to lead to this gun culture argument,
00:37:06 this pro gun culture argument
00:37:08 that people find very uncomfortable.
00:37:11 Human beings are messy
00:37:13 and we’re messy in so many different ways, right?
00:37:15 We’re messy emotionally, we’re messy physically,
00:37:19 but we’re also messy in what’s good or bad.
00:37:22 We want things to be binary.
00:37:23 We want things to be right or wrong, one or zero.
00:37:27 And they’re not, but there is crime in the world.
00:37:31 There is violence in the world
00:37:32 and you’re better off knowing how to fight
00:37:35 and you’re better off knowing how to defend yourself
00:37:37 and you’re better off having a gun.
00:37:39 And I generally think that guns,
00:37:41 I do like the idea that guns,
00:37:44 the Second Amendment helps protect the First Amendment.
00:37:46 There’s a kind of sense that puts me at ease
00:37:50 knowing that so many people in this country have guns
00:37:53 that, I mean, Alex Jones,
00:37:55 I just listened to one episode of Infowars
00:37:58 for the first time.
00:38:00 Boy, he reminds me like when I drank some tequila,
00:38:03 I felt like I’m going to some dark places today.
00:38:06 That’s how I feel like listening to him.
00:38:08 But he talks about like that he worries about martial law.
00:38:13 So basically government overreach by,
00:38:16 which happened throughout history.
00:38:17 Like there’s something to worry about there,
00:38:20 but it puts me at ease knowing
00:38:22 that so much of the population has guns
00:38:25 that people, government would think twice
00:38:28 before instituting martial law on cities.
00:38:31 But I actually was asking almost like
00:38:33 on the individual level,
00:38:35 I maybe shouldn’t say this, but I don’t yet own a gun.
00:38:39 And I felt that if I carry a gun
00:38:42 statistically just for me as a human,
00:38:46 knowing my psychology,
00:38:47 I feel like I’m more likely to die.
00:38:49 Like I feel like I would put myself in situations
00:38:53 that I shouldn’t.
00:38:54 Like the way I will see the world will change
00:38:57 because my natural feeling is like when somebody,
00:39:01 when I was in Philly and I knew late at night,
00:39:04 if West Philly, when some guy looks at you
00:39:08 and you can immediately calculate
00:39:09 that this is a dangerous human being,
00:39:12 it starts with a monkey look at first.
00:39:14 Like I’m a bigger monkey than you.
00:39:17 And that’s where I found like, for example,
00:39:19 I’ll do the beta thing of just looking down
00:39:21 and turning away and just getting out of trouble
00:39:23 like very politely.
00:39:25 And basically that kind of approach,
00:39:28 because if you have,
00:39:30 in terms of getting out of serious violent situations,
00:39:32 like serious something where you could die
00:39:35 versus if I had a gun, I feel like I would want to be,
00:39:39 that there would be that cowboy monkey thing
00:39:43 where I would want to put myself in situations
00:39:45 where I’m a little bit of a savior, even of myself
00:39:48 and almost create danger, which can no longer,
00:39:53 like the escalation of which I can no longer control.
00:39:57 Well, you’re talking about taking a gun somewhere
00:39:59 versus having a gun in your home.
00:40:00 Yes, yes, I mean carry on me.
00:40:02 That’s a different situation
00:40:03 and much harder to get a warrant or a license for that.
00:40:07 Control, concealed carry licenses,
00:40:10 especially in Massachusetts, they don’t come easy.
00:40:12 Well message, yeah, that’s a whole nother thing.
00:40:14 Yeah.
00:40:14 You’re saying gun in the home.
00:40:16 Yeah, gun in the home, having a gun,
00:40:18 knowing how to use a gun.
00:40:19 Like I know how to use a gun.
00:40:21 I’ve trained many hours,
00:40:23 learning how to shoot a gun at tactical places.
00:40:27 There’s a bunch of videos of me doing it on Instagram.
00:40:30 I practice and I think it’s good to understand
00:40:34 how to be accurate.
00:40:36 So I’ve been a fan of your podcast for a long time.
00:40:38 You don’t often talk about it
00:40:40 because you’re always kind of looking forward,
00:40:42 but if you look at the old studio that you just left,
00:40:45 is there some epic memories that stand out to you
00:40:48 that like you almost look back,
00:40:52 I can’t believe this happened?
00:40:53 Oh yeah, almost too many of them to count.
00:40:57 Is there something that pops into mind now?
00:40:58 All of them, Elon Musk blowing that flamethrower
00:41:01 in the middle of the hallway, I got a video of that.
00:41:04 Have you seen the video of it?
00:41:05 Yeah, I think you posted it on Instagram.
00:41:06 I think I did too.
00:41:08 Yeah, he’s a mad man.
00:41:09 Having Bernie Sanders in there,
00:41:12 just all the fun fight companions we did
00:41:16 and all the crazy podcasts with Joey Diaz
00:41:18 and Duncan Trussell and there were so many.
00:41:21 There were so many moments.
00:41:24 Podcasts, this is a weird art form
00:41:27 and it almost sounds silly,
00:41:30 but it almost seems like something that chose me
00:41:32 rather than I chose it.
00:41:34 I think of that all the time in some strange way.
00:41:36 It’s like I’m showing up as like an antenna
00:41:40 and I just plug in and twist on
00:41:43 and then I take in the thing and I put it together
00:41:46 and I’m like a passenger of this weird ride.
00:41:49 Yeah, you’ve talked about this before.
00:41:51 I really like this idea
00:41:54 that human beings are just carriers of these ideas.
00:41:57 Ideas are the ones who are breeding.
00:41:59 So in a sense like the idea found you as a useful brain
00:42:02 to use to spread itself through the podcasting medium.
00:42:06 Yeah.
00:42:11 Because when I think about your podcast,
00:42:12 I think about Joey Diaz.
00:42:13 I think about all those comedians you’ve had.
00:42:16 I mean, I think you’ve had Joey on,
00:42:18 I mean, maybe close to 50 times, some crazy number.
00:42:22 Is there, I mean, he is over the top offensive,
00:42:27 just that’s who he is to the core.
00:42:30 Is there some sense where you wondered like
00:42:38 whether it’s right to have the Spotify episode number one
00:42:42 with Duncan Dressel for five hours?
00:42:44 No, I wanted to do it that way.
00:42:47 That’s why we wore NASA suits and we got high as fuck.
00:42:50 It’s like, that’s the whole idea behind it.
00:42:53 I mean, can you introspect that a little bit?
00:42:54 Like, can you think, like, what is that?
00:42:56 Cause that’s rare.
00:42:57 It’s such a rare thing to do because you’re not supposed
00:43:03 to talk to Duncan Dressel with a huge platform
00:43:06 that you have five hours.
00:43:08 Why not?
00:43:09 Because Donald Trump apparently watches your podcast.
00:43:12 So just the idea that there’s these,
00:43:16 I mean, that’s what I think about,
00:43:18 these CEOs write to me that they listen to the podcast
00:43:21 that I do and I have somebody like a David Fravor
00:43:26 and I was nervous about it.
00:43:27 I was nervous to have a conversation.
00:43:29 For me, David Fravor is a Duncan Dressel, which is like.
00:43:33 Just because of his experiences with UFOs.
00:43:36 Yeah, even just the way he sees the world
00:43:39 because he is open.
00:43:40 I don’t know if he’s always like this,
00:43:41 but he opened himself to the possibility
00:43:43 of unconventional ideas.
00:43:45 Most people in the scientific community kind of say,
00:43:48 well, I don’t really want to believe anything
00:43:50 that doesn’t have a lot of hard evidence.
00:43:52 And so that was to me like a step.
00:43:55 And as the thing somehow becomes more popular,
00:43:58 there becomes this fear of like,
00:44:01 well, should I talk to this person or not?
00:44:04 And I mean, you’re an inspiration in saying like,
00:44:06 do whatever the hell you want.
00:44:08 You have to.
00:44:09 First of all, I have what you call fuck you money.
00:44:14 And if you have fuck you money, you don’t say fuck you.
00:44:16 What’s the point of having the fuck you money?
00:44:18 You’re wasting it.
00:44:19 Like you’re wasting the position.
00:44:21 Like someone said to me like,
00:44:22 why do you like sports cars so much?
00:44:24 Like how many cars do you have, a bunch of cars?
00:44:26 Because if I was a kid and I said,
00:44:28 hey, if I was that crazy rich famous guy,
00:44:31 like I don’t want to have a bunch of cool fucking cars.
00:44:33 Like, so I would do that.
00:44:36 Like, cause not everybody gets to do that.
00:44:39 Like if you’re the person that gets to do that,
00:44:40 you’re kind of supposed to do it.
00:44:42 Like that’s if you want to,
00:44:44 if that really does speak to you.
00:44:46 And, you know, I’ve talked to you about this before,
00:44:49 muscle cars, specifically ones from the 1960s
00:44:53 and the early seventies.
00:44:54 They speak to me in some weird way, man.
00:44:56 I could just stare at them.
00:44:57 Like I have a 65 Corvette.
00:44:59 I walk around it sometimes at night when no one’s around.
00:45:02 I just stare at it.
00:45:03 What’s your favorite muscle car?
00:45:05 Like what’s your most bad ass late sixties,
00:45:09 the perfect car?
00:45:10 Probably that car.
00:45:11 Probably that 65 Corvette.
00:45:12 Yeah, I walk around it when no one’s around.
00:45:15 I think I’ve driven the 69 Corvette.
00:45:16 Is there a particular year that just?
00:45:19 65 is a generation two.
00:45:22 69 is generation three.
00:45:24 69 is like the, it’s even more curvy.
00:45:26 They’re both awesome, just awesome in different ways.
00:45:29 But I just love muscle cars for whatever reason.
00:45:33 But the point is like, I like what I like.
00:45:36 And if I can do what I want to do,
00:45:38 I should do what I want to do.
00:45:39 And it’s not hurting anybody.
00:45:40 And the thing is like, I would do the Duncan podcast
00:45:43 if no one was listening, right?
00:45:45 If we were just starting to do a podcast together
00:45:48 and no one cared and it got like 2000 views,
00:45:50 which we did for years.
00:45:53 I would do it with Duncan and we would get high
00:45:54 and we’d talk crazy shit about aliens and spaceships
00:45:57 and maybe dude, maybe ideas are living life forms
00:46:00 and they’re inside your head.
00:46:01 And that’s how things get made.
00:46:02 Man.
00:46:04 Man.
00:46:05 I’ve just kind of morphed me and him together in that
00:46:08 because the life form idea, life form idea is mine
00:46:11 that I’ve really, I really think about a lot.
00:46:14 I think about on a technical side, by the way.
00:46:17 When I heard you say that, cause I’ve been thinking,
00:46:18 I was like, whoa, that’s interesting.
00:46:21 It might be, they might be alive
00:46:23 because they, I don’t know what the fuck they are,
00:46:25 but when someone has an idea for, you know,
00:46:28 whatever an invention, a toaster,
00:46:30 and then they think about this,
00:46:32 all it need is like these heating elements and a spring
00:46:35 and then it pops on the stunts, have a timer.
00:46:37 And then they build this thing.
00:46:39 Now all of a sudden it’s alive.
00:46:40 It’s like you manifested it in a physical form.
00:46:43 Toaster is not the best example, but a car, an airplane,
00:46:47 you’re thinking about a thing,
00:46:49 like an idea comes into your head and you can say,
00:46:51 oh, well, it’s just creativity.
00:46:53 It’s a part of being a person.
00:46:54 That’s how we invented tools
00:46:56 and how, you know, we became better hunters.
00:46:58 All those things are true.
00:47:00 I’m not saying that there’s some magic to what I’m saying,
00:47:04 but there’s also a possibility
00:47:07 that we’re simplifying something
00:47:09 by saying that it’s just creativity,
00:47:11 that it’s just a natural human inclination to invent things.
00:47:15 But why?
00:47:17 Is it possible that ideas like creativity,
00:47:20 like we are the only animal other than,
00:47:23 there’s a few species that create things
00:47:25 like bees make beehives and, but it’s very,
00:47:28 they’re very uniform, you know, some animals use tools,
00:47:32 you know, like, you know,
00:47:33 champs will use like sticks to get termites
00:47:35 and things like that.
00:47:36 But there’s something about what we do
00:47:39 that’s, it makes you wonder.
00:47:41 Cause we look at the, just look at this room that we’re in,
00:47:44 look at all these electronics,
00:47:46 look at all this crazy shit that human beings have invented
00:47:50 and then built upon others inventions
00:47:52 and proved and innovated.
00:47:54 These all came out of ideas.
00:47:57 Like the idea, it germinates in someone’s head,
00:48:02 it bounces around, they write it down,
00:48:04 they share it with others,
00:48:05 the other people who have similar ideas
00:48:07 or ideas that are complimentary, they work together
00:48:10 and they change the world.
00:48:12 And the new thing in that is the idea is not the people.
00:48:15 It’s like, we think we found the ideas,
00:48:17 but it’s more like the ideas found us.
00:48:19 Find you, yeah.
00:48:20 They’re literally in the air.
00:48:23 They come to you.
00:48:24 I always felt like that with bits.
00:48:26 Like when I come up with a bit,
00:48:27 that’s why I’m always telling people
00:48:29 about the Steven Pressfield book, The War of Art,
00:48:32 because he talks about respecting the muse
00:48:35 and the idea that your ideas come when you sit down
00:48:40 and you do the work or you sit down like a professional
00:48:42 and you talk to the muse,
00:48:44 like come tell me what to do.
00:48:45 Like if the muse was a real thing,
00:48:47 as if the muse is like some mystical creature
00:48:50 that comes and delivers you ideas.
00:48:53 Even if that’s not real, that’s how it works.
00:48:56 It does work like that.
00:48:57 If you do treat it like it’s a muse
00:49:00 and you treat it with the respect
00:49:01 and you treat it like a professional,
00:49:03 the ideas do come to you.
00:49:05 I never thought about what he’s doing
00:49:06 is just sitting there waiting for the idea
00:49:08 that’s trying to breed to find him.
00:49:11 Yeah.
00:49:11 That’s a trippy thing.
00:49:13 If you show up. That’s trippy.
00:49:14 If you show up and put in the time
00:49:16 and focus your energy on that,
00:49:19 the ideas, they will arrive, they will arrive.
00:49:23 And that’s the same with writing comedy.
00:49:25 Like there’s been many, many times
00:49:26 where I’ll come home from the comedy store
00:49:28 and I just sit down and I start writing
00:49:30 and I just, I got nothing, there’s nothing there.
00:49:32 I’m just writing, it’s all bullshit.
00:49:35 Nothing’s good, it’s just like, hmm.
00:49:37 And then all of a sudden, bam, there’s the idea.
00:49:40 And then all of a sudden I can’t stop.
00:49:43 And then, you know, it was a couple hours later
00:49:45 and I’m like, whoa.
00:49:46 And then the next night I’m on stage
00:49:47 and I’m like, how about that?
00:49:49 Boom, it gets this big laugh.
00:49:51 I’m like, holy shit.
00:49:52 And I know that came out of the discipline
00:49:55 to sit down and call the muse.
00:49:57 I mean, the cool thing is the ideas have found you
00:50:01 to like, oh, I’m gonna use this dude.
00:50:03 Like he seems to have a podcast that’s popular.
00:50:06 I’m gonna breed inside his brain and spread it to others.
00:50:10 It’s the same as.
00:50:11 Or an inventor, you know, I’m gonna use this guy
00:50:13 who’s like desperately seeking some sort of a product
00:50:16 to bring to market.
00:50:17 Some guy who wants to invent things,
00:50:19 is thinking about inventing things all the time.
00:50:21 These ideas, they weasel their way into your head.
00:50:24 And it seems to me also that the frequency
00:50:28 that your mind operates under has to be correct.
00:50:32 Because one of the things about creativity seems to be
00:50:34 if you think about yourself a lot,
00:50:36 if you’re really into yourself or your image
00:50:40 or you’re selfish, those ideas are not,
00:50:44 they don’t find you.
00:50:45 Yeah, it’s funny.
00:50:46 It stifles the creative.
00:50:48 Yeah, it stifles the opportunity
00:50:50 that the idea has to find you.
00:50:52 Yes, which is one of the reasons why joke thieves,
00:50:54 people that steal jokes are terrible writers.
00:50:57 There’s never like really good writers
00:50:58 who are also joke thieves.
00:51:00 It’s just joke thieves.
00:51:02 And then, you know, when they have to write on their own,
00:51:04 if they get exposed, they become terrible comedians.
00:51:08 They’re a shadow of what they were
00:51:11 when they were stealing other people’s ideas.
00:51:12 Because the thing that would make you steal
00:51:14 a person’s idea is that ego part,
00:51:17 the like the wanting to claim it for yourself,
00:51:20 the wanting to be the man or the woman.
00:51:23 You know, I wanna be the person who gets out there
00:51:24 and says it and everybody’s gonna love me for it.
00:51:27 Like you can’t think like that and be creative.
00:51:30 It requires a humility and it requires a detachment
00:51:34 from self in order to create.
00:51:36 Like when I’m writing, I’m blank.
00:51:39 I’m like, I’m just staring.
00:51:40 I’m like, I’m just the part of my mind
00:51:43 that’s active is not like me.
00:51:45 It’s like this weird core function part
00:51:49 where I’m not aware of my personality.
00:51:53 I’m not aware of any of that.
00:51:56 I’m just trying to put it together
00:51:58 in a way that I know works.
00:52:00 It’s just being there, being present.
00:52:01 Pressfield is just, I’m a big believer just sitting there
00:52:05 and staring at a blank page, putting in the time.
00:52:08 Yeah, and sometimes it’s not that way.
00:52:10 Sometimes it’s an inspiration.
00:52:11 Like sometimes I’ll be sitting there at dinner
00:52:13 and I’ll be like, I got an idea.
00:52:15 And my wife’s really cool about that.
00:52:16 I’m like, I have an idea and I blah, blah, blah.
00:52:19 I have to just run out of the room real quick
00:52:20 and I write it down on my phone and then I can come back.
00:52:23 Because those are like little gifts
00:52:25 that you get sometimes from the universe out of nowhere.
00:52:28 And some people rely only on those gifts, you know?
00:52:31 And I’ve talked to comics about it.
00:52:33 They’re like, oh, I can’t come up with my best ideas
00:52:35 when I don’t write.
00:52:36 And I’m like, no, I do too.
00:52:37 I come up with great ideas when I don’t write,
00:52:39 but I also write.
00:52:40 Like you can do both of those things.
00:52:41 They’re not mutually exclusive.
00:52:44 You mentioned fuck you money.
00:52:46 I feel like I have fuck you money now.
00:52:49 A year ago I was at zero, I have fuck you money now
00:52:52 because probably my standard is my,
00:52:54 I don’t need much in this world.
00:52:57 But because also, probably because of you,
00:53:00 but it’s 300 to 400,000 people.
00:53:02 This isn’t every episode I do.
00:53:04 And that is weird.
00:53:07 It’s definitely.
00:53:07 That’s a successful television show on cable.
00:53:09 Yeah, it’s crazy.
00:53:10 It’s all you.
00:53:11 Yeah, it’s hilarious.
00:53:12 That’s amazing.
00:53:13 But at this point, that also resulted in
00:53:16 a few money in a sense that I don’t,
00:53:20 I don’t need anything else in this world.
00:53:22 But so by way of asking, I’ve looked up,
00:53:26 you’ve inspired me for a long time.
00:53:28 Do you have advice?
00:53:29 You’ve done this on the podcast side of life.
00:53:33 Do you have advice for somebody like,
00:53:36 for me and somebody like me going on this journey?
00:53:40 Eric Weinstein is going on this journey.
00:53:43 Is there advice, both small and big,
00:53:47 that you have for somebody like me?
00:53:50 The advice is to keep doing what feels right to you
00:53:53 and do what you’re doing.
00:53:54 Obviously, it’s resonating with people
00:53:56 if you’re getting that big of an audience.
00:53:58 And I’ve listened to your podcast.
00:53:59 You’re very good at it.
00:54:00 So just keep doing it the way you’re doing it.
00:54:04 Don’t let anybody else get involved.
00:54:06 What about, you’ve connected,
00:54:08 I think you met Jamie at the Comedy Store.
00:54:11 I met him at the Ice House.
00:54:12 At the Ice House?
00:54:13 Ice House.
00:54:14 Well, I think I met him at the Comedy Store,
00:54:15 but then we talked at the Ice House.
00:54:17 I mean, what?
00:54:17 You’d have to ask him.
00:54:18 Yeah, did you think deeply about,
00:54:20 because you basically have nobody on your team.
00:54:25 And so it almost feels like a marriage.
00:54:27 Were you selective about somebody
00:54:32 to bring into your little circle?
00:54:34 Well, Jamie’s exceptional.
00:54:35 He is.
00:54:36 He’s a special.
00:54:38 I mean, he might’ve grown.
00:54:39 I don’t remember how he was in the early days.
00:54:40 Maybe you could say, but he’s grown.
00:54:42 He’s definitely better at it,
00:54:43 but right away, he’s exceptional.
00:54:45 He’s got very little ego.
00:54:47 Yes.
00:54:48 He’s not a guy who needs a lot of attention.
00:54:50 He’s not a guy who overestimates anything.
00:54:55 Like in terms of like a negative or positive,
00:54:59 like his interpretation of whether it’s good things
00:55:05 that happen to the show or bad things that happen to the show,
00:55:07 he just takes it all like flat.
00:55:10 He’s chill.
00:55:11 He’s just cool as fuck.
00:55:12 And he’s so smart.
00:55:14 And he’s so good as an audio engineer
00:55:16 and as a podcast producer, he’s the best.
00:55:19 But he’s basically one of the only people
00:55:20 on this whole team.
00:55:21 So how do you find, I mean,
00:55:24 when you let people in,
00:55:28 I mean, I’m sure other people wanted to get involved.
00:55:29 Like, why don’t you have a cohost that could,
00:55:32 you basically kind of, well.
00:55:34 Well, here’s the problem with the cohost.
00:55:36 Like when you and I are talking,
00:55:37 when we’re talking, I’m tuned in to you
00:55:41 and I’m waiting to hear what you’re saying
00:55:44 and I’m listening and I’m interpreting it.
00:55:46 And then I’m calculating whether or not
00:55:48 I have anything to say, whether to let you keep talking,
00:55:52 whether I maybe have a question that lets you expand further
00:55:56 or whether I have a disagreement
00:55:58 or like there’s a dance that’s going on.
00:56:00 Now, when there’s another person there chiming in too,
00:56:04 it fucks the dance up.
00:56:05 It’s like dancing.
00:56:06 Like if you’re doing a dance with someone,
00:56:09 like if you’re slow dancing with someone
00:56:11 and then a third person’s there
00:56:13 stepping on everybody’s feet.
00:56:15 Sometimes it’s fun.
00:56:16 Sometimes having a third person is fun.
00:56:18 Comedy podcasts, sometimes it’s fun.
00:56:20 Fight companions, yeah, debate structures.
00:56:23 But even then it gets difficult
00:56:24 because people talk over each other.
00:56:25 And also I find that without headphones,
00:56:30 it’s way easier to talk over each other.
00:56:32 You make mistakes.
00:56:34 You don’t hear it the same way.
00:56:36 When you have headphones, I hear what you hear.
00:56:38 It’s all one sound and the audience hears exactly,
00:56:43 or rather I hear exactly what the audience hears.
00:56:46 Whether it’s over here, my voice is louder than yours
00:56:50 because you’re over there.
00:56:51 And if I don’t have headphones on, it doesn’t,
00:56:53 it’s not all together.
00:56:54 On that point, one of the interesting things about your show
00:56:57 is you don’t almost never have done,
00:57:01 and you just generally don’t do remote,
00:57:03 sorry, not remote calls,
00:57:04 but you don’t go to another person’s location.
00:57:08 We have only done a few, a small handful.
00:57:10 And just like with Sapolsky, he should do this.
00:57:13 But I actually, we went back and forth on email.
00:57:16 I told him he needs to get his ass back in this studio.
00:57:20 He’s working on a book.
00:57:21 I was a fan of his a long time ago
00:57:23 because I became obsessed with toxoplasmosis.
00:57:27 And I’ve reached out to him a long time ago
00:57:31 before he was willing to do it.
00:57:33 But then I caught him in downtown LA.
00:57:35 He was there for something else.
00:57:36 And I just greedily snatched up an hour of his time.
00:57:40 Well, he doesn’t get, I think, some of those folks
00:57:42 don’t get how much magic can happen in this podcast studio.
00:57:45 Like bigger than anything they’ve ever done
00:57:48 in terms of their work.
00:57:49 I’m not talking about reach,
00:57:51 but in terms of the discovery of new ideas,
00:57:54 there’s something magical about conversation.
00:57:56 Like somebody as brilliant as him,
00:58:00 if he gives himself over to the conversation
00:58:03 for multiple hours at a time,
00:58:04 that’s another place where you’ve been an inspiration.
00:58:06 Where I’m getting more and more confidence
00:58:10 of telling people, like in Elon Musk,
00:58:13 that a lot of CEOs are like,
00:58:16 well, he has 30 minutes on his schedule.
00:58:19 I’m like, no, three hours.
00:58:22 And then they’re like, so some say no,
00:58:27 and then they come back.
00:58:28 There’s people that started coming back to like,
00:58:30 okay, we’re starting to get it.
00:58:32 They start to get it.
00:58:33 And you’re a rare beacon of hope in that sense
00:58:36 that there’s some value in long form.
00:58:39 They think that nobody wants to listen
00:58:41 for more than 30 minutes.
00:58:43 They think like, I have nothing to say.
00:58:45 But the reality is if you just give yourself over
00:58:49 to like the three hours, just let it go,
00:58:52 three hours, four hours, whatever it is,
00:58:54 there’s so much to discover
00:58:56 about what you didn’t even know you think.
00:58:58 Yeah.
00:58:59 Yeah, you have to be confident that you could do it.
00:59:02 And in the beginning, I just did it
00:59:05 because that’s what I wanted to do.
00:59:07 And no one was listening.
00:59:08 So I’ve always been a curious person.
00:59:12 So I’ve always been interested in listening
00:59:16 to how people think about things
00:59:18 and talking to people about their mindset
00:59:21 and just expanding on my own ideas, just talking shit.
00:59:26 And so we would have these podcasts
00:59:28 and they would go on forever.
00:59:29 And my friend Ari, I never let this die down.
00:59:35 Never let him forget this.
00:59:37 He was always like, you have to edit your podcast.
00:59:38 I’m telling you right now, you’re fucking up.
00:59:40 I go, why?
00:59:41 He’s like, because people are not gonna listen to it.
00:59:43 I go, they don’t have to.
00:59:44 Yeah.
00:59:45 I go, you listen to part of it.
00:59:46 He goes, just do it.
00:59:47 Just, I’m telling you, trust me,
00:59:49 cut it down to like 45 minutes.
00:59:50 That’s all you need.
00:59:51 And I’m like, no, no, I don’t think you’re right.
00:59:54 I go, I like listening to long form things.
00:59:56 No one has that kind of time.
00:59:57 I go, okay, I’m just gonna keep doing it this way, so.
01:00:01 And it sticks to your gut.
01:00:03 No, he doesn’t.
01:00:04 His are like two and a half hours long now.
01:00:06 That’s great.
01:00:07 You won, but you wouldn’t like say,
01:00:10 I mentioned to you this before, and this is gonna happen.
01:00:12 It’s actually made a lot of progress towards it.
01:00:14 I’m gonna talk to Putin,
01:00:16 but you wouldn’t travel to Putin if you wanted to talk to you.
01:00:19 Putin is a dangerous character.
01:00:21 He’s not.
01:00:22 He’s not.
01:00:23 Have you ever seen the thing with Jerry Kraft
01:00:26 where they stole his Super Bowl ring?
01:00:27 Yeah.
01:00:28 Yeah.
01:00:29 I think that was a little bit of misunderstanding.
01:00:31 Oh, really?
01:00:33 I think it’s a little bit.
01:00:33 He just decided he’s gonna steal that Super Bowl ring.
01:00:35 Kind of.
01:00:36 I think it was a…
01:00:37 Kind of.
01:00:38 Can I see your ring?
01:00:39 He shows him his ring and then he puts it on
01:00:41 and says, I can murder somebody with this ring.
01:00:43 So he…
01:00:44 And then he walks off with it.
01:00:44 It’s possible he did it as a,
01:00:46 he’s a big believer in displays of power.
01:00:50 Yeah.
01:00:51 So like, it’s possible he did that,
01:00:52 but I think he sees himself as like a tool
01:00:57 with which to demonstrate that Russia still belongs
01:01:01 on the stage of the big players.
01:01:03 And so he, a lot of actions are selected through that lens.
01:01:07 But in terms of a human being,
01:01:11 outside of any of the evils that he may or may not have done,
01:01:16 he is a really thoughtful, intelligent, fun human being.
01:01:21 Like the wit and the depth from the JRE perspective
01:01:26 is really interesting.
01:01:27 I’m like his manager now, selling the, he’s a judo guy.
01:01:30 Trying to get Trump, he’s really good at judo.
01:01:33 I have seen him practice judo.
01:01:34 He’s a legit black belt.
01:01:36 And not only that, he loves it, not just skill wise,
01:01:40 but to talk about it, to reason about it,
01:01:42 to think about it, to MMA as well.
01:01:44 So, you know, it’d be a good conversation,
01:01:47 but you wouldn’t travel to him.
01:01:52 Well, that’s, hold to your principle.
01:01:53 So that’s the core of the advice.
01:01:55 Just hold to whatever.
01:01:56 I would rather, here’s the thing.
01:01:59 There’s not a person that I have to have on the show.
01:02:03 Right.
01:02:04 And I’m happy to talk to anybody.
01:02:06 I’m just as happy to talk to you as I am to talk to Trump,
01:02:10 as I am to, probably more happy to talk to you,
01:02:12 as I am to talk to Mike Tyson, as I am to talk to Joey Diaz.
01:02:15 I like talking to people.
01:02:17 I enjoy doing podcasts.
01:02:19 I enjoy talking to a variety of people
01:02:21 and I schedule them based on, I want to like,
01:02:25 I try not to get too many right wing people in a row
01:02:27 or too many progressive people in a row.
01:02:29 I don’t want to get repetitive.
01:02:31 I try not to get too many fighters in a row.
01:02:33 I try to balance it out.
01:02:34 Not too many comedians.
01:02:35 Comedians are the one group where I can have three,
01:02:39 four in a row, five in a row.
01:02:40 Cause that’s my tribe.
01:02:42 You know, those are my people.
01:02:43 It’s easy.
01:02:44 We can talk about anything.
01:02:45 It’s a weird dance.
01:02:46 You know, the conversations that you’re doing on a podcast
01:02:50 are, they’re a strange dance.
01:02:52 And you want to, you know,
01:02:55 you want to not step on your own feet
01:02:56 and you want to make sure that you do it in a way,
01:03:00 do the podcast in a way that’s entertaining for people.
01:03:02 And it’s conversations are learning how to talk to people.
01:03:07 It’s a weird skill.
01:03:09 It’s a weird skill that took a long time
01:03:10 for me to get good at.
01:03:11 And I didn’t know it was a skill until I started doing it.
01:03:14 And then I just thought you were just talking.
01:03:16 Like, I know how to talk.
01:03:18 We’ll just talk to people.
01:03:19 And then along the way I realized like, oh,
01:03:20 and then when you talk to people that are bad at it,
01:03:23 you realize that it’s a skill.
01:03:24 Like particularly one of the things about my people,
01:03:28 about comedians is a lot of them tend to want to talk,
01:03:32 but don’t want to listen.
01:03:34 Right.
01:03:35 So they’re waiting for you to stop talking so they can talk,
01:03:39 but they’re not necessarily thinking
01:03:41 about what you’re saying, you know?
01:03:43 And they’re just waiting for their opportunity
01:03:45 or they talk over you or they,
01:03:47 and I try real hard not to do that and sometimes I fail,
01:03:50 but when I’m at my best, I’m dancing.
01:03:55 Yeah, ultimately the skill conversation
01:03:56 is just really listening, like really,
01:04:00 and listening and thinking.
01:04:01 Listening and thinking and being genuinely curious
01:04:05 and really having a take on what they’re saying
01:04:10 and maybe a followup question or maybe,
01:04:15 it’s gotta be real, it’s gotta be authentic.
01:04:17 And when it is authentic and it’s real,
01:04:19 it resonates with people.
01:04:20 Like they’re listening and they go,
01:04:21 oh, like I’m locked in with the way you’re thinking.
01:04:25 Like you two guys are in a conversation and I’m locked in.
01:04:29 When she talks and you listen, I’m listening too.
01:04:32 When he says something to her
01:04:34 or when she says something to him,
01:04:36 like there’s a thing that happens during conversations
01:04:39 where you’re there, like you’re listening to,
01:04:42 and it’s with me, when I listen to a good podcast,
01:04:45 I feel like I’m in the room.
01:04:47 I feel like I’m in the room and I’m like the friend
01:04:50 that got to sit down and listen.
01:04:51 Like, oh, yeah, that’s a great conversation.
01:04:55 I love conversations.
01:04:56 So I love listening to them
01:04:58 and I love putting them together.
01:04:59 And the fact that this podcast has gotten so fucking big,
01:05:04 it’s stunning to me, it blows me away.
01:05:07 I never anticipated it.
01:05:09 Never thought for a second that that stupid thing
01:05:11 that I used to do in my couch, in my office
01:05:15 was the biggest thing I’ve ever done in my life by far.
01:05:18 Like people used to make fun of it.
01:05:20 Like there’s a comedy store documentary that’s coming out
01:05:22 and one of the parts of the documentary is my friend,
01:05:25 Tom Segura, when he first started doing my podcast,
01:05:28 he would be leaving and he would talk to Redband.
01:05:30 He’s like, what the fuck is he doing?
01:05:32 Like, why is he doing this?
01:05:33 Like who’s listening?
01:05:34 He’s like, oh, some people like it.
01:05:36 And he’s like, fucking nonsense, waste of time.
01:05:38 And like in the documentary, it shows like 2000 views,
01:05:43 like one of the early Ustream episodes.
01:05:45 It’s hilarious.
01:05:46 And they don’t just like it,
01:05:47 really they form a friendship with you.
01:05:50 It’s like, even me when people come up to me,
01:05:53 like the love in their eyes is kind of beautiful.
01:05:56 It’s weird, right?
01:05:57 Yeah, it’s like.
01:05:58 You’re a part of their life.
01:05:59 Yeah, and I don’t know, it’s also heartbreaking
01:06:02 because you realize you’ll never really get to know them
01:06:05 back like, because they clearly are friends with you.
01:06:09 Yes, yeah.
01:06:11 And it’s sad to see a person who’s clearly brilliant
01:06:13 and interesting and is friends with you,
01:06:17 but you don’t get a chance to return that love.
01:06:20 And I mean.
01:06:21 My kids, it took them a while to figure out
01:06:23 what’s going on, but people would come up to me
01:06:27 and they would say something like,
01:06:29 hey man, I fucking love you, thanks man.
01:06:31 All right, hey brother, nice to meet you.
01:06:34 My daughter was like six.
01:06:35 She’d be like, do you know him?
01:06:36 I’m like, no, I don’t know him.
01:06:37 She’s like, how does he know you?
01:06:39 Like, it’s a very weird conversation I used to have
01:06:44 with young kids when I’d explain,
01:06:47 I’d do this thing called the podcast
01:06:48 and millions of people listen.
01:06:50 So now one of my daughters is 12
01:06:53 and one of her friends is 13 and he’s a boy
01:06:56 and he goes to school with her and he’s obsessed with me.
01:06:59 And so she’s weirded out.
01:07:00 And she says to him, I don’t even think you like me.
01:07:02 I think you’re just into my dad, you fucking weirdo.
01:07:04 She’s going to have that conversation
01:07:07 in a few stages in her life.
01:07:09 Like that hard conversation with a boyfriend.
01:07:12 Yeah, probably, yeah.
01:07:13 That was the thing about men too.
01:07:16 This podcast is, my podcast is uniquely masculine.
01:07:22 I’m a man and I’m not, I’m also a man
01:07:26 that doesn’t have to go through some sort
01:07:27 of a corporate filter.
01:07:29 I’m not going through executive producers
01:07:31 who tell me, don’t have this guest on,
01:07:34 don’t talk about that.
01:07:36 We looked at focus groups and they don’t seem to like
01:07:38 when you do this, like there’s none of that.
01:07:40 And I just do it.
01:07:43 So I have a whole podcast where I just talk about cars
01:07:46 and people are like, I don’t want to hear you
01:07:48 talk about cars.
01:07:48 Well, good, congratulations.
01:07:50 You found what you like.
01:07:51 Here’s good news, there’s 1500 other ones.
01:07:54 Go listen to the other episodes
01:07:55 where I don’t talk about cars.
01:07:57 You don’t have to listen.
01:07:59 And it’s not like your brand, you just are who you are
01:08:02 and that’s what you do.
01:08:04 But it’s like, it’s authentically what I’m interested in.
01:08:08 All the podcasts, whether I’m talking to David Fravor
01:08:11 about his experience with UFOs,
01:08:13 whether I’m talking to David Sinclair about life extension,
01:08:17 whether I’m talking to you about artificial intelligence
01:08:20 or what, it’s because I want to talk to these people.
01:08:23 And that resonates.
01:08:25 I like when people are into shit.
01:08:28 I’ve talked about this before,
01:08:29 things that I have no interest in making furniture,
01:08:32 but I like this PBS show where this guy
01:08:34 makes furniture by hand.
01:08:35 I love watching it.
01:08:36 Because he’s so into it.
01:08:38 He’s sanding this and polishing that.
01:08:39 I’m not going to do that.
01:08:40 I don’t give a fuck about furniture.
01:08:42 Furniture for me is function, like this desk.
01:08:45 Function works, but I love when people are into it.
01:08:48 I’m happy that someone can make it and they do a great job,
01:08:51 but I’m not interested in the task
01:08:56 or even the finished product
01:08:59 as much as I’m interested in someone’s passion
01:09:01 for something.
01:09:02 The passion that they’ve put into this, that shines through.
01:09:05 Last question.
01:09:07 I sometimes ask this just for to, what is it?
01:09:11 To challenge, to make people roll their eyes,
01:09:15 to make legitimate scientists roll their eyes.
01:09:17 Ask, what is the meaning of life, according to Joe Rogan?
01:09:22 I do not think there is a meaning.
01:09:24 I think there’s many, many meanings of life.
01:09:26 I think there’s a way to navigate life that’s enjoyable.
01:09:30 I think it requires many things.
01:09:32 It requires, first of all, it requires love.
01:09:35 You have to have loved ones.
01:09:36 You have to have family.
01:09:37 You have to have friends.
01:09:38 You have to have people that care about you
01:09:40 and you have to care about them.
01:09:42 I think that is primary.
01:09:44 Then it also requires interests.
01:09:47 There has to be things that stimulate you.
01:09:50 Now, it could be just a subsistence lifestyle.
01:09:52 There’s many people that believe and practice
01:09:56 this lifestyle of just living off the land
01:09:59 and hunting and fishing and living in the woods
01:10:01 and they seem incredibly happy.
01:10:03 And there’s something to be said for that.
01:10:05 That is an interest, right?
01:10:07 There’s something and there’s a direct connection
01:10:10 between their actions and their sustenance.
01:10:12 They get their food that way.
01:10:14 They’re connected to nature
01:10:15 and it’s very satisfying for them.
01:10:18 If you don’t have that, I think you need something
01:10:21 that is interesting to you,
01:10:24 something that you’re passionate about.
01:10:26 And there’s far too many people that get sucked
01:10:28 into living a life where you’re just doing a job,
01:10:33 you’re just showing up and putting in your time
01:10:35 and then going home, but you don’t have a passion
01:10:37 for what you’re doing.
01:10:37 And I think that’s the recipe for a boring
01:10:42 and very unfulfilling life.
01:10:43 You mentioned love, if we could just backtrack.
01:10:46 What, we talked about the demons
01:10:49 and the violence in there somewhere.
01:10:51 What’s the role of love in this, in your own life?
01:10:55 It’s very important, man.
01:10:57 And that’s one of the reasons why I’m so,
01:11:01 I’m so interested in helping people.
01:11:04 I’m very interested in people feeling good.
01:11:07 I like them to feel good.
01:11:09 I want to help them.
01:11:10 I like doing things that make them feel like,
01:11:12 oh, you care about me, like, yeah, I care about you.
01:11:14 I really do.
01:11:15 Like, I want people to feel good.
01:11:17 I want my family to feel good.
01:11:19 I want my friends to feel good.
01:11:20 I want guests to feel good about the podcast experience.
01:11:23 You know, I am, I’m a big believer in as much as I can
01:11:28 to spread positive energy and joy and happiness
01:11:32 and relay all the good advice that I’ve ever gotten.
01:11:35 All the things that I’ve learned
01:11:37 and if they can benefit people,
01:11:38 then I find that those things benefit people
01:11:41 that actually improve the quality of their life
01:11:43 or improve their success or improve their relationships.
01:11:46 I’m very happy to do that.
01:11:48 That means a lot to me.
01:11:49 The way we interact with each other is so important.
01:11:53 It’s one of the reasons why, like,
01:11:55 if someone gets canceled or you get publicly shamed,
01:11:58 it’s so devastating because there’s all these people
01:12:01 that are negative, all this negative energy coming your way
01:12:04 and you feel it.
01:12:05 As much as I like to pretend that you’re immune
01:12:07 to that kind of stuff
01:12:08 and some people do like to pretend that, you feel it.
01:12:10 There’s a tangible force when people are upset at you.
01:12:14 And that’s the same with loved ones or family
01:12:17 or anytime someone’s upset at you,
01:12:20 whether it’s a giant group of people
01:12:22 or there’s a small amount of people.
01:12:23 That has an impact on you and your psyche
01:12:27 and your physical being.
01:12:28 So the more you can spread love
01:12:31 and the more love comes back to you,
01:12:34 you also create this butterfly effect, right?
01:12:36 Where other people start recognizing like,
01:12:39 oh, you know, when he is nice to me, I feel better
01:12:42 and then I’m gonna be nicer to people.
01:12:43 And when I’m nicer to people, they feel better
01:12:45 and I feel better and it spreads outward.
01:12:48 And that’s one thing that I’ve done through this podcast,
01:12:50 I think, is I’ve imparted my personal philosophy
01:12:54 in kindness and generosity to other people.
01:12:57 Yeah, I mean, to correct you, you didn’t do it.
01:13:00 The ideas that are breeding themselves through your brain
01:13:02 have figured out.
01:13:03 Yes, the ideas that are alive in the air
01:13:05 that made their way into my head.
01:13:07 Love is a more efficient mechanism of spreading ideas.
01:13:09 They figured out.
01:13:10 Yes, probably, man.
01:13:14 Probably.
01:13:16 So as far as like the meaning of life,
01:13:21 that’s a bit, without that, you have nothing.
01:13:23 You know, one of the biggest failures in life
01:13:26 is to be extremely successful financially,
01:13:27 but everybody hates you.
01:13:29 Everybody hates you and you’re just miserable
01:13:30 and alone and angry and depressed and sad.
01:13:33 You know, when you hear about rich, famous people
01:13:35 that commit suicide, like, wow, you missed the mark.
01:13:39 You got some parts right,
01:13:41 but you put too many eggs in one basket.
01:13:44 You put too many eggs in the financial basket
01:13:46 or the success basket or the accomplishment basket
01:13:49 and not enough in the friendship and love basket.
01:13:52 And there’s a balance to that.
01:13:53 And when I talked about the violence and all that stuff,
01:13:56 like that to me is me understanding, recognizing that
01:14:00 is me trying to achieve that balance.
01:14:02 It’s to like go kill those demons
01:14:05 so that this boat is level, you know,
01:14:07 because if it’s not, then the boat is like this
01:14:09 and then everything’s all fucked up.
01:14:10 And every time we hit a wave, things fall apart.
01:14:13 Balance that boat out, figure it out, like know who you are.
01:14:16 Some people don’t have that problem at all.
01:14:18 Some people, they could just go for walks
01:14:20 and they’re cool as a cucumber.
01:14:22 I need more, you know, I need kettlebells.
01:14:24 I need a heavy bag.
01:14:26 I need the Echo bike, you know, the Air Assault bike.
01:14:29 I need some hardcore shit.
01:14:31 And if I don’t get that, I don’t feel good.
01:14:33 So I figured that out too.
01:14:35 And that makes me a nicer person.
01:14:37 That makes my interactions nicer.
01:14:39 It changes the quality of my friendships
01:14:44 and my relationships with people.
01:14:46 I think we mentioned Neuralink.
01:14:49 I can certainly guarantee that this is one of the memories
01:14:53 I’ll be replaying 20, 30 years from now
01:14:55 once we get the feature ready.
01:14:57 Joe, it’s a huge honor to talk to you.
01:14:58 I hope. It’s an honor
01:14:59 to talk to you too, man.
01:15:00 Keep doing podcasts. I’m glad you came down here for this.
01:15:02 The first week of me doing this here
01:15:04 and it’s very cool to have you always.
01:15:07 I hope you make Texas cool again
01:15:10 and do your podcast another 10, 11, whatever,
01:15:14 however many years you’re still on this earth.
01:15:17 All right, thank you, brother.
01:15:18 I appreciate you, man.
01:15:19 Thanks for listening to this conversation with Joe Rogan
01:15:22 and thank you to our sponsors,
01:15:24 Neuro, Eight Sleep and Dollar Shave Club.
01:15:27 Check them out in the description to get a discount
01:15:29 and to support this podcast.
01:15:33 If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube,
01:15:35 review it with Five Stars and Apple Podcast,
01:15:37 follow on Spotify, support on Patreon
01:15:39 or connect with me on Twitter, Alex Friedman.
01:15:43 And now let me leave you with some words of wisdom
01:15:45 from Joe Rogan, the universe rewards,
01:15:48 calculated risk and passion.
01:15:51 Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.