Lex Fridman Podcast - #127 – Joe Rogan: Conversations, Ideas, Love, Freedom & The Joe Rogan Experience

Episode Date: September 26, 2020

Joe Rogan is a comedian, UFC commentator, and the host of the Joe Rogan Experience. Please check out our sponsors to get a discount and to support this podcast: - Neuro: https://www.getneuro.com and use code LEX - Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/lex and use code LEX - Dollar Shave Club: https://dollarshaveclub.com/lex Episode Links: Joe's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joerogan Joe's Twitter: http://twitter.com/joerogan JRE (Spotify): https://open.spotify.com/show/4rOoJ6Egrf8K2IrywzwOMk JRE (Apple): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-joe-rogan-experience/id360084272 JRE (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzQUP1qoWDoEbmsQxvdjxgQ If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/podcast or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon. Here's the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. OUTLINE: 00:00 - Introduction 05:17 - Fear of mortality 06:48 - Chaos of 2020 and beyond 10:32 - Are we going to be okay? 19:30 - Violence, competition, and Sober October 26:45 - Mike Tyson 27:49 - Managing obsession 30:13 - Jiu jitsu game 35:55 - Best martial art for self defense 39:30 - Guns 43:59 - Memorable JRE moments 49:31 - Ideas breed in brains of humans 56:08 - Advice for Lex 1:06:09 - Long-form conversation 1:12:28 - Meaning of life

The following is a conversation with Joe Rogan that we recorded after my recent appearance on his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. Joe has been an inspiration to me and I think to millions of people for just being somebody who puts love out there in the world and being genuinely curious about wild ideas from chimpsons psychedelics to quantum mechanics and artificial intelligence. Like many of you, I've been a fan of his podcast for over a decade and now, somehow, miraculously, am humbled to be able to call him a friend. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe by YouTube, review it with 5 stars and Apple podcasts,

follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter, Alex Friedman. Today's sponsors are Neuro, 8 Sleep, Dollar Shave Club, and Olive Garden, home of the unlimited breadsticks and brown red bands favored restaurant. Check out the first three of the sponsors in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast. As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now and no ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting, but I give you time stamps so you can skip. But still, please do check out the sponsors by clicking the links in the description.

This show is sponsored by Nurell, a company that makes functional gum and mints that supercharge your mind with a sugar-free blend of caffeine, alcyanine, and B6B12 vitamins. It's loved by Olympians and engineers alike. I personally love the midgum. It helps me focus during times when I can use a boost. My favorite use case is to chew it for like 10 minutes at the start of a deep work session, standing behind a desk, typing frantically, and build up a kind of urgent energy around the task to get the ball rolling, which I think the first few minutes of a deep work session is actually the hardest, most difficult

part. By the way, Cal Newport, author of Deep Work, a book I highly recommend will eventually be on this podcast. I talk to him often, he's a constant inspiration. He has his own podcast too, on productivity, called Deep Questions. They should definitely check out. Anyway, each piece of neurogum is about one half cup of coffee's worth of caffeine. You may know that I love caffeine. I also just love coffee and tea.

Makes me feel like home somehow. Anyway, Neuro is offering 15% off when you go to GetNeuro.com and use code Lex at checkout. Once again, that's GetNeuro.com and Use Code Alexa. This show is also sponsored by 8Sleep and it's Pod Pro mattress. You can check out at 8Sleep.com slash Lex to get $200 off. It controls temperature with an app and is packed with sensors and can cool down to as low as 65 degrees. I need side of the bed separately.

anecdotally, it's been a game changer for me. I'm generally the kind of person that's not about material possessions. I don't have many fancy things in my life. So this bed has been a kind of exciting addition into the mix. There's something about the combination of a cool bed surface with a warm blanket after a long day of focused work that is just something I look forward to. Sleeping general for me lately, I don't know if it's related to the bed or not, has been full of dreams. So I've been exploring the universe, not constrained by the physics of reality quite a bit. Maybe it's the bed. You should try it out and see. I should mention that they

can track a bunch of metrics like heart rate variability, but cooling alone honestly is worth the money. Anyway, go to a sleep.com slash Lex to get $200 off and to support this podcast. This show is also sponsored by Dollar Shave Club. Try them out with the one time offer for only $5 and free shipping at DollarShaveClub.com slash Lex. The starter kit comes with a sick blade razor, refills, and all kinds of other stuff that makes shaving feel great. I've been a member of DollarShave Club for over 5 years, and actually signed up when I first heard about them on the Joe Rogan Experience.

And now, become full circle friends. I'm interviewing Joe on this podcast and monetizing it by doing a read for Dollar Shave Club. It feels kind of surreal to be honest, to be doing a read for them just like Joe did all those years ago. For the past few years I just used the Razer and the ReFills but they encouraged me to try the shave butter which I did and I love it. Again, try the ultimate shave starter set today for just five bucks plus free shipping at dollarshadeclub.com slash Lex. And now here's my conversation with Joe Rogan. Do you ponder your mortality? Are you afraid of death? I do think about it sometimes.

I mean, it does pop into my head sometimes. Just the fact that I mean, I'm 53. So if everything goes great, I have less than 50 years left. You know, if everything goes great, like no car accidents, no injuries, but it can happen today. This could be your last day. That's kind of a stoic thing to meditate on death. There's a bunch of philosophers, Ernest Becker and Sheldon Solomon. They believe that death is the core of everything, with this book, Warm at the Core. So does that come into play in the way you see the world? I think having a sense of urgency is very beneficial and understanding that your time is limited can aid you greatly. I think knowing that this is a temporary time that we have finite life spans, I think there's

great power in that because it motivates you, it gets you going. I think being in a mortal, living forever would be one of the most depressing things, particularly if everybody else was dying around you. And I think one of the things that makes life so interesting and fascinating is that it doesn't last. You know, that you really get a brief amount of time here. And really by the time you're just starting to kind of figure yourself out who you are

and how not to screw things up so bad. It's like, time's up. The ride's over. What about from your daughter's perspective? Do you think about the world we're in now and what kind of world you're going to leave them? I do. Do you worry about it? I do.

Yeah, I do. I do when I see these protests and riots and chaos and so much so much anger in the world today. And then particularly today, I think because of the pandemic and the fact that so many folks are out of work and through no fault of their own and can't make ends meet and just people feel so helpless and angry. It's a particularly divisive time. It's a particularly turmoil filled time and it just doesn't seem like the world of a year ago even just feels very chaotic and dangerous. And it's a small thing, like in terms of the possibilities

of things that could happen to the world, like a pandemic, the one we've experienced, it really just doubles the amount of deaths on a bad flu year. Relatively speaking, is a small thing compared to super volcano eruptions, asteroid impact, a real horrific pandemic, or one that really wipes out millions and millions of people.

It's stunning how fragile civility is. It's stunning how fragile our society really is. Something like this can come along, some unprecedented thing can come along and all of a sudden everybody's out of work for six months. And then everybody's out of each other's throats. And then politically everyone's out of each other's throats. And then with the advent of social media and the images that you can see, you know, with

videos of police abuse and just racial tensions are an all time high. To a point where like if you asked me just five or six years ago, like, have racial problems in this country largely been alleviated, I'd probably say, yeah, it's way better than it's ever been before. But now you could argue that it's not. Now you could argue it's no, it's way worse. And just a small amount of time. It's way worse than it's ever been during my lifetime.

While I'm aware of it, obviously when I was a young boy in the 60s, they were still going through the civil rights movement, but now it just seems very fever pitched. I think a lot of that is because of the pandemic and is because of all the heightened tension. What I like in it too is, road rage, because you know, people have road rage, not just because they're in the car, no one can get to them, but also because you're at a heightened state,

because you're driving fast, and you know you're driving fast, you know you have to make split second movements, and so anybody doing something, you're like, what the, people go crazy, because they're already at an eight because they're in the car and they're moving very quickly. That's what it feels like with today, with the pandemic,

it feels like everybody is already at an eight. So anything that comes along, it's like light it all on fire. You know, burn it down. Like that's part of what I think is part of the reason for a lot of the looting and the riots and all the chaos. It's not just the people that are work, but it's also that everyone feels so tense already. And everyone feels so helpless. And it's like, you know, doing something like that makes people, it just,

it gives people a whole new motivation for chaos, a whole new motivation for doing destructive things that I've never experienced in my life. And your better days when you see a positive future, what do you think is the way out of this chaos of 2020? Like if you visualize a 2025, that's a better world than today. What does that, how do we get there, what does that look like? It's a better world than today. What is that? How do we get there? What does that look like? It's a good question.

I can honestly say I don't know. And I wouldn't have said I don't know a year ago. A year ago, I would have said, we're going to be okay. As much people hate Trump, the economy's doing great. I think we're going to be fine. That's not how I feel today. Today, I don't think there's a clear solution politically because I think of Trump wins. People are going to be furious and I think of Biden wins. People are going to be furious. Particularly like if things

get more woke, if people continue to enforce compliance and make people behave a certain way and act a certain way, which seems to be a part of what this whole woke thing is. The most disturbing for me is that I see what's going on. I see there's a lot of losers that have hopped on this and they shove it in people's faces and it doesn't have to make sense. There was a Black Lives Matter protest that stopped this woman at a restaurant. They were surrounding her outside a restaurant. They were forcing her to raise her fist and compliance.

This is a woman who's marched for Black Lives multiple times, Black Lives Matter multiple times. And the people around her doing this were all white. It's all weird. My friend Coach T. He's a wrestling coach is also on a podcast. My friend Brian Moses. His take on it is a black T. He's a wrestling coach is also on a podcast. My friend Brian Moses his take on it is that black and he's a black guy. He says black lives matter is a white cult. And I'm like when you see that picture it's hard to argue that he's got a point. I mean it's

clearly not all about that but there's a lot of people that have jumped on board that are very much like cult members because Because the thing about Black Lives Matter or any movement is you can't control who joins. There's no entrance examination. So you don't go, okay, how do you feel about this? What's your perceptions on that? Like how, you like the man who shot the Trump supporter in Portland, you know, that guy who murdered the Trump supporter than the cop shot him, that guy was walking around with his hand on his gun looking for Trump supporters. Just want, I mean, he's a known violent guy who was walking around looking for Trump supporters, found one in shot one.

That has nothing to do with Black Lives Matter. He's a white guy, he shot another white guy. It's just madness, you know, and that that kind of madness is it's disturbing to see it ramp up so quickly. I mean, there's been there's been riots in Portland every night. Oh, excuse me, demonstrations for 101 days now. 101 days in a row of them lighting things on fire, breaking into federal buildings. It's like, who ever saw that comment? Nobody saw that comment. So I don't know what the solution is, and I don't know what it looks like in five years.

So 2025 to answer your question, like, they could be anything. I mean, we could be looking at Mad Max. We could be looking at the apocalypse. We could also be looking at an invasion from another country. We could be looking at a war, like a real hot war. To put a little bit of responsibility on you, like for me, I've listened to you since the Red Band, Olive Garden Days, it's the very beginning, and there was something in

the way you communicated about the world. Maybe there was others, but you were the one I was aware of. As your open-minded and loving towards the world, especially as the podcast developed, you just demonstrated and lived this kind of just kindness, or maybe even lack of jealousy, in your own little profession of comedy, it was clear that you didn't succumb to the weaker aspects of human nature and thereby inspire like people like me who I was, I was naturally probably especially in like the 20s, early 20s kind of jealous on the success of others and you're really the primary person that taught me to truly celebrate the success of others. And so by way of question, you kind of have a role in this

of making a better 2025. You have such a big megaphone. Is there something you think you can do on this podcast with the words, the way you talk, the things you discuss that could create a better 2025? I think if anything, I could help in leading by example, but you know, that's only going

to help the people that are listening. I don't know what else I can do in terms of like make the world a better place other than express my hopes and wishes for that and just try to be as nice as I can to people is often as I can But I also think that I've fallen into this weird category particularly with the Spotify deal where um, you know, I'm one of them now. I'm not a regular person anymore now. I'm like some Famous rich guy. Yeah, so you go from being a regular person to a famous rich guy that's how to touch. And that's a real issue whenever you're talking about the economy, about just real life problems. It's interesting. It kind of hurts my heart to hear people say about

Elon Musk, he's just a billionaire. Yeah. It's an interesting statement, but I think if you just continue being you and he continue being him, people are just voicing their worry that he becomes some rich guy. I don't even know if they're doing that. I think they're just finding the way he describes it in a tech vector. Right. Yeah, and I think he's right. I think they can dismiss you by just saying, oh, you're you're you're just of that. You know, you're, you know, you're easily

uh, definable. Right. But there, I mean, there's truth to that. You, if you're not careful, you can become out of touch. But you, that that's an interesting thing. Like, why haven't you become out of touch? Like as a human off the podcast, you don't act like, why haven't you become out of touch? Like, as a human off the podcast, you don't act like, like, you talk to somebody like me. You don't talk like a famous person, or you don't act rich. Like, you're better than others. There's a certain, listen, I've talked to quite a few,

you have two, but I've talked to a specially kind of group of people that like, no-bought prize winners, let's say. They have sometimes have an heir to them that's of arrogance. And you don't. What's that about? Well, you've got to know what that is, right? Like that heir of arrogance comes from drinking your own Kool-Aid. You start believing that somehow, I know that just because you're getting praised from all these people that you really are something different. Usually it exemplifies, there's something there,

there's where there's a lack of struggle, you know, and I think struggle is probably one of the most important balancing tools that a person can have. And for me, I struggle mentally and I struggle physically. I struggle mentally in that, like we were talking about on the podcast we did previously, you and I, my podcast said,

I'm not a fan of my work. I'm not a fan of what I do. I'm a harshest critic. So anytime anybody says something bad about me, I'm not a fan of what I do. I'm a my harshest critic. So anytime anybody says something bad about me, I'm like, listen, I said way worse about myself. I you know, I don't like anything I do. I'm ruthlessly introspective and I will continue to be that way because that's the only way you could be good as a comedian. There's no other way. You can't just think you're awesome and just go out. You have to you have to be like picking apart everything you do,, there's no other way. You can't just think you're awesome and just go out there. You have to be like picking apart everything you do.

But there's a balance to that too, because you have to have enough confidence to go out there and perform. You can't think, oh my god, I suck. I know what I'm doing, but I know what I'm doing because I put in all that work. And one of the reasons why I put in all that work is I don't like the end result most of the time.

So I need to work at it all the time. And then there's physical struggle, which I think balances everything out. Without physical struggle, I always make the analogy that the body is in a lot of ways like a battery, where if you have extra charge, it's like it leaks out at the top, but it becomes unmanageable and messy. And that's how my psyche is. If I have too much energy, if I'm not exerting myself in a violent way, like an explosive way, like wearing myself out, I just don't like the way the world is. I don't like the way I interface with the world.

I'm too tense. I'm too quick to be upset about things, I'm too, but when I work out hard, and I put in a brutal training session, everything's fine. Well, the first time I talked to you on Jerry, you were doing October. Sober October. And there's something in your eyes, like I think you've talked about that you exercise the demons out essentially, so you exercise to get whatever the parts of you that you don't like out. There's a darkness in

you there, like the competitiveness and the focus of that person. That was a scary time in a lot of ways that sober October thing. Because my friends were all talking shit, right? Cause we're competing against each other and these fitness challenges. And you had one point, poor, you got a certain amount of points for each minute that you went at 80% of your max heart rate.

And one day I got 1100 points. So I did seven hours on an elliptical machine watching the bathhouse scene from John Wick where he murders all those people in the bathroom. I watched him probably 50 times in a row. I went crazy. I went crazy, but I went crazy in a weird way where it brought me back to my fighting days. It was like the same that person came out again. It's like, well, I didn't even know he was in there. So they're like, like an assassin, like a killer. Like I felt like, I felt like a different person.

Is it echoes of like what Mike Tyson talked about essentially, like the, but no orgasm in the emotions. No, the crazy shit that he was saying. But is there, is there that, Is there a violent person in there? Oh yeah. There's a lot of violence in Maine for sure. I don't know if it's genetic or learned or it's because during my formative years from

the time I was 15 until I was 22, all I did was fight. That was all I did. That was all I did. All I did was train and compete. That's all I did. That was all I did. All I did was train and compete. That's all I did. That was my whole life. Is it connected to, so your mom and dad broke up early on? Is it connected to the dad at all? I'm sure it's connected to him also because he was violent

and it made me feel very scared to be around him. But I also think it's connected in who he was as a human as transferred into my DNA. You know, I think there's connected in who he was as a human, is transferred into my DNA. You know, I think there's a certain amount of, I mean, I mean, to be prejudiced against myself, I look like a violent person. You know, if I didn't know me, I'm just even the way I'm built. Not even just the working out part, just the size of my hands and like, there's the width of my shoulders, like there's most likely a lot of violence in my history, in my past, in my ancestry.

And I think, I think we minimize that with people. So much of your behavior, like when I see my daughter, one daughter that's obsessive in terms of like she wants to get really good at things. I could she and she'll practice things all day long and it's 100% my personality. She's me in a female form. But without the anger as much and without the fear like she is loving household and everything like that. But she has this intense obsession with doing things and doing things really well and getting better.

What at the point we have to tell her, stop, stop doing hands-brings in the house, stop, stop, come on, just sit down, have dinner. Like one more, one more. She's just like, she's psycho. And I think there's a lot of behavior and personality and a lot of these things are passed down through genetics. We don't really know, right? We don't know how much of who you are genetically is learn behavior, you know, nature and nature.

We don't know if it's learned behavior or whether or not it's something that's intrinsically a part of you because of, you know, who your parents were. I think there's certainly some genetic violence in me. There's a new channel that is figured out is basically your life is a productive exploration of how to channel that. Yes. How to figure out how to get that monkey to sit down and calm down. There's another person in there. Like there's a calm, rational, kind, friendly person

who just wants to laugh and have fun. And then there's that dude who comes out when I did sober October. That guy's scary, I don't like that guy. That guy just wants to get up in the morning and go. It's like, when I was competing, it was necessary. But it makes me remember. I didn't really remember what I used to be like until that. It's like, when I'm working out seven hours a day, and it's so obsessed. And, and all I was thinking

about was winning. It's all I was thinking about. Like, if they were, if they were working out five hours a day, I wanted, I wanted them to know that I was going to work out an extra three hours, and I was going to get up early, and I was going to text them all, hey, pussy's, I'm up already, take pictures, send selfies. And I was like, you're going to die, oh, it kept telling them you're all going to die, and try to keep up with me, you're going to die. You weren't fully joking. No, I wasn't joking at all. That's what it was fucked up about.

It's the scary thing when I interacted with Goggins and what I saw in you on doing that time is like this guy Like like this is why I've been avoiding David Goggins recently Is like because he wants to meet he wants to do like talking this podcast But he also wants to run an ultra marathon with me and I felt like this is a person if I spend any time in this realm, if I spend any time with the Joe Rogan of that sober October, like I might have to die to get out. Like there's this kind of, yeah, there's a competitive aspect that's super unhealthy. I mean, you saw the video that we watched earlier today of Goggins draining his knee.

That would stop me from running ever again, because I would think in my head, okay, I'm going to ruin my cartilage, I'm going to need a knee replacement, I would start thinking, I would go down that line, but he is perpetually in this push it mindset. What he calls the dog in him, he's got that dog is in him all day long and he feeds that dog. And that's who he is. That's one of the reasons why he's so inspirational and he's fueled for millions and millions of people. I mean, he really is. He motivates people in a way that is so powerful,

but it can be very destructive. I know now, especially after the sober October thing that that thing's still in me. You know, I didn't know. So I really haven't done anything physically competitive. Except one time I was supposed to fight Wesley Snipes. It came out then too. That came out too.

That got creepy too. But luckily that never happened. But that was many months of training, like training twice a day, every day, kickboxing in the morning, jujitsu at night, I was just going, going, going, going, and going, and I was just thinking just all day long. And it, but a bit of fucks with all the other aspects of your life,

fucks with your friendships, fucks with your, your, your, fuck with my comedy, fucks with everything. Because that mindset is not a mindset of an artist, it's a mindset of a conqueror. The conqueror. Yeah, destroyer. That's why it's so interesting to see Mike Tyson make the switch.

It's clear that like, whatever that is, however that fight goes, he made us, there's a switch of a different, he stepped into a different dimension. Roy Jones Jr. is coming on my podcast soon. And you know, Roy's gonna be on before the fight. I'm so curious to see how it goes down, but genuinely concerned. Because Mike Tyson is a heavyweight. And Roy Jones, that his best was 168 pounds.

I don't know if Roy has that room in his house, mental house of where Mike Tyson goes. I don't know. I don't know if he has that room. Mike just never room. He's got an empire in there. He opens up the door. He's helping up the door. There's a whole empire in his head and he's in that firmly. You know, when he got out of the weed and started training again,

like you could see it in him. And by the way, physically in person, he looks spectacular. He looks like a fucking adonis. I mean, he looks ready to go. It's crazy. Yeah, I watch videos of him. What about you?

Have you ever considered competing in Jiu-Jitsu? No, for that very reason, I don't want to get obsessed. That's my number one concern. I had a quit video games. When we were playing video games, the studio had a quit. Because I was playing five hours a day. Out of nowhere, all of a sudden, I was playing five hours a day. Like out of nowhere. All of a sudden I was playing five hours a day. I was coming home late for dinner.

I was ending podcasts early and jumping on the video games and playing. I get obsessed with things and I have to recognize what that is and these competitive things. Like competitive, especially like really exciting competitive things like video games. They're very dangerous for me. The ultimate competitive video game is like Jiu-Jitsu. And if I was young, I most certainly would have done it. If I didn't have like a very clear career path, there was something that I enjoyed,

my concern would be that I would become a professional Jiu-Jitsu fighter when I was young. And then I would not have the energy to do stand up and do all the other things that I wound up doing as a career. When I was 21, I quit my job teaching. I was teaching at Boston University. I was teaching Taikoendo there and I knew and I also had my own school in revier. I knew I couldn't do it right and also be doing stand-up comedy. I knew I couldn't do both of those

things. There was no way. You have to be cognizant of that obsessive force within you to make sure. Yes. I know I have to know how to manage my mental illness. That's a very particular mental illness. And I think that mental illness. Again, my formative years from 15 until I was, you know, 21-ish-22, until I was, you know, 21-ish, 22, those years were spent constantly obsessed with martial arts. That was my whole day. I mean, I trained almost every day. The only time I would not train as if I was either injured or if I was exhausted, if I needed a day off, but I was obsessed. And so that part of my personality that I haven't nurtured is always going to be there under the surface. And when it gets reignited by something, it's very weird. It's a weird feeling. And it can get reignited with a video game, it can get reignited with anything.

That obsessive, that, you know, whatever it is, that competitive demon. Yeah, the way you talk about guitar, I know you would fall in love with playing guitar, but I think you're very wise to not touch that thing So I won't golf I have friends who want to golf and like Fucking with that thing. So a lot of people ask me but like what's Joe Rogan's digits of game like like Like assuming that I somehow spend hours rolling with you before and after like assuming that I somehow spend hours rolling with you before and after. I mean, what's a good, you should at some point show a technique or something that'll be fun. Sure, I mean, I've got what's your game?

What's your game? Oh, I saw you doing a, I think, head and arm something online. Yeah, I did. That was, I fucked my neck. I'm doing head and arm chokes. I did them so much that I, you know, because you use your neck so much with head and arm chokes, I developed like a real kink in my neck and turned out I had a bulging disc. And, you know, so you're doing on that just one side? Well, it was, no, I could do it on the left side, but I definitely am better on the right side.

The right side was my best side. So if you were to compete, let's say, like, what's your A game? Where would you go from standing up? How would you go to submission? Would you pull guard? Would you take down? What, how would you pass guard? What's, I don't have good take downs.

I was not a good wrestler. So I would most likely either pull guard or I would pull half guard. Do you have a good guard? Yes. Are you comfortable being on your back? Yes. But on your back. Yes.

I'm very flexible. So I have good, my rubber guard is pretty. You go to rubber. Yeah. Yeah. I have good arm bars and good triangles off my back. But I also have a very good half guard. But my top game is my best.

I have a very strong top game. Do you have a half guard? Do you have a preference of like what kind of guard and how to pass that guard? And like, yeah, like is there a specific game plan? Like, do you double under hooks from half guard as the game plan for me? If I can get double under hooks from half guard,

I get sweep a lot of feet. Under hooks of what? Sorry, the arms are in the back. So half guard locked down, right? Half guard going to lock down, double under hooks. what, sorry, the arms are in the back. So half guard locked down, right? Half guard going to lock down, double under hooks. Got it. Clinch to the body, suck the body in the pressure and yeah, massive pressure.

And then inch my way into a position, we call the dog fight, inch my way to position, where could get the person on their back. Yeah, that's what, because you did show me, I still disagree with you about the tie thing. The tie you can choke up so wrong. So wrong Well, it's not wrong with you with you. It's wrong because you know, I think there's a system

I have I have this thing Madonna. We're gonna figure it out. Okay, but Velcro in the back. No, let's see. That's here's just not the game. You're not you're the exact as cheat Yeah, you did I did feel when you me, I think you showed me the rubber guard because it's still a guard that's a little bit foreign to me. I just felt that you can immediately feel not with the rubber guard, just but the way you move your body is your, like a Shangri-jee type of guy

who knows how to control another human being. So like some people are a little bit more, I would say agile and technical like playful and kind of loose and they work on transition, transition, transition, you're a control guy. Like you know how to control position and advanced position. Donahar is the same way. He's all about control. My, my game is smush.

That's my game, smush you. Grab a hold of you, once I have you, why would I let you go? My thought is like, why would I let you go? I just wanna incrementally move to a better position until I can strangle you. But I'm much more in just strangling people than anything else.

Yeah, which is a great MMA approach for Jiu-Jitsu. Well, too many people don't tap when you get their arms. You know, and it's not a, I'm not opposed to arm bars. I love arm bars, but everybody goes to sleep. Yep. And quit from pressure too. I mean, quit mentally. It's nothing like.

I can't breathe. You know, if you got a guy who's like a really good top game guy and he mounts you, and I'm a big fan of mounting with my legs crossed, like a guard, like a top guard. And so I can squeeze with both legs, that's mush. And I'm just looking for people to make mistakes and slowly, incrementally, bettering my position until I can get something locked up.

I love Jiu-Jitsu, though, man. I just wish it didn't injure you. You know, Jiu-Jitsu is like, if your joints were more durable, they could figure out a way to make joints more durable. God, could you Jiu-Jitsu forever? Yeah. So much fun. Actually, I talked to this robotist, Russ Teddrake, he builds one of the world-class people that builds human robots. You're interested in Boston Dynamics,

you know, to keep people in that kind of robotics. So I asked in the stupidest question of like, how far we from having a robot be a UFC champion. And yeah, it's actually a really, really tough problem. It's the same thing that makes somebody like Danielle Comi on the wrestling side special because you have to understand the movement of the human body in ways that's so difficult to teach. It's so subtle, the timing, the pressure points, the leverage, all those kinds of things. That's just for the clinch situation. And then the movement for the striking is very difficult.

As long as you're not allowed as a robot to use your natural abilities of having a lot more power. Right, a lot more power and more durable. Right, human body, especially meniscus. You see the heel hook game, everybody's involved in leg locks and heel hooks. All those guys wind up with torched knees. Everyone's got torched knees. Everyone's knees are torn apart. And you don't grow new meniscus. You know, that's like one of those joints where man, when it goes,

those guys are 28 years old, have blown out knees. Let me ask the ridiculous question. What do you think we're talking about cops? What do you think is the best martial arts for self-defense? For sure, Jiu Jitsu. Yeah, for sure. Wrestling? I think grappling, I should say, what judo as well, I'm especially in a cold climate, if you get someone who's got a heavy winter jacket on, my god, like judo is an incredible, most concrete.

Does the worst place to be, heavy winter jacket with a judo specialist, and you're standing up with them? Oh my god. But I think grappling, because in most self-defense situations, it're standing up with them. Oh my God. But I think grappling because in most self-defense situations it usually winds up with grappling. You're definitely better off though knowing some striking because there's nothing more terrifying than when you go to take someone down. They actually have takedown skills, but they can fight. And so they have takedown defense and they know how to fight. And then you don't know how to

stand up. Like the worst thing in the world seeing someone like reaching who doesn't know how to do striking and someone cracks you. What about all that Krav Magat talk, which is like, you know, the whole line of argument that says that Jijitsu and wrestling and all of these sports, they fundamentally take you away from the nature of violence. So they're just teaching you how to play versus the reality of violence that is involved in like a self-defense situation that is totally different set of skills would be needed. In general, the people that say that jujitsu or other martial arts, they're more of a sport

and they don't really understand and they don't really understand violence in general the people that say that suck. Yeah, that's anybody who thinks like someone's like, you know, Hey, man, I'll just bite you. I'm like, are you going to bite me? Okay. You think I'm going to bite you too? What do you think of that? What if I punch you in your fucking face? You think you're still going to bite me when you can't even see? When you barely even know you're alive

and I choke you unconscious? If someone's really good at jujitsu, good luck stabbing them with your keys. You know, you don't have a chance. You don't have a chance. If someone's much better, you and they trip you and get you on your back and then they fucking elbow you in your face

and then get a head and arm choke on you. All that crap, Magasheets out the window, son. Your way better off learning what works on train killers. Like this whole idea that you're gonna poke someone in the eye and then you're gonna kick them in the nuts and like you're going through these drills that yeah, it's good to know what to do if you run into someone who doesn't know how to fight. It's way better to know what to do to someone who knows how to fight. That's the best thing. know how to fight, it's way better to know what to do to someone who knows how to fight. That's the best thing. Learn how to fight against people who know how to fight. All that practice self-defense and they kind of come at you with a knife, you're going to grab the

wrist and do that. It's good to know self-defense. But it's much more important to understand martial arts, comprehensively. When you understand martial arts. Comprehensively. When you understand martial arts comprehensively, like there's no cra... I don't know if it was no Krav Maga guys, but it would be shocking if a Krav Maga guy and a mixed martial arts guy had a fight and the mixed martial arts guy was a trained killer all around

didn't fuck that guy up. That's what I would expect would happen. I would I would I would not think that some guy who Has a little bit of this and a little bit of that and prepares for the streets is gonna be able to handle a person who trains with Kailers on a day-to-day basis who rolls with Jiu-Jitsu black balls who trains with Muay Thai champions like here The best martial arts of the martial arts that. Like here, the best martial arts are the martial arts that work on martial artists, not the martial arts that work on untrained people. What about, we're in Texas now.

What about guns? Well, that's the best martial art. No, but would you, like in this crazy time, should people carry guns? It's not a bad idea to have a gun because if you need a gun, you have a gun. And if you don't need a gun, if you're a person with self control, you're not going to use it, you're not going to just randomly use it, but you have something to protect you. This is the whole idea of the second

amendment. The whole idea of the second amendment gets distorted by mass shootings or pie, terrible people who murder people and do terrible things. But it's that but all those things are real, but they don't take away from the fundamental efficacy of having a firearm and defending your family or defending your life. And there are real live situations where people have had firearms and it's protected them or they're loved ones or they've stopped shooters. There's many of these stories, but people don't like those stories because then it tends to lead to this gun culture argument, as pro-gun culture argument, that people find very uncomfortable. Human beings are messy, and we're messy in so many different ways, right?

We're messy emotionally, we're messy physically, but we're also messy in what's good or bad. We want things to be binary. We want things to be right or wrong, one or zero. They're not, but there is crime in the world. There is violence in the world, and you're better off knowing how to fight, and you're better off knowing how to defend yourself, and you're better off having a gun. I generally think that guns, I do like the idea that guns, Second Amendment helps protect the First Amendment.

There's a kind of sense that puts me at ease knowing that so many people in this country have guns that, I mean, Alex Jones, I just listened to one episode of Info Wars for the first time. Boy, he reminds me like when I drank some tequila, I felt like I'm going to some dark places today. That's how I feel like listening to him. But he talks about like that, it's he worries about martial law. So basically government overreach by,

which happened throughout history, like there's something to worry about there, but it puts me at ease knowing that so much of the population has guns that people government would think twice before instituting martial law on cities. But I actually was asking almost like on the individual level, I maybe shouldn't say this, but I don't yet own a gun. And I felt that if I carry a gun, statistically, just for me as a human knowing my psychology,

I feel like I'm more likely to die. Like I feel like I would put myself in situations that I shouldn't. Like the way I will see the world will change. Because my natural feeling is like when somebody when I was in Philly and I knew late at night, if West Philly, when some guy looks at you, you can immediately calculate that there's a dangerous human being. It starts with a monkey look at first. Like, I'm a bigger monkey than you. And that's where I found like, for example, I'll do the beta thing of just looking down and turning away and just getting out of trouble like very politely. And basically

that kind of approach, because if you have a, in terms of getting out of serious violence situations, like serious, something where you could die versus if I had a gun, I feel like I wouldn't want to be that that that would be that cowboy monkey thing where I would want to put myself in situations where I'm a little bit of a savior, even of myself, and almost create danger which can no longer, like the escalation of which I can no longer control. Well, you're talking about taking a gun somewhere

versus having a gun in your home. Yes, yes, I mean carrying on me. That's a different situation and much harder to get a warrant for or a license for that. Control concealed carry licenses, especially in Massachusetts. They don't come easy. A little message, yeah. That's a whole other thing. Yeah. Home saying gun in the home. Yeah. Gun in the home. Having a gun, knowing how to use a gun. I know how to use a gun. I've trained many hours learning how to shoot a gun at tactical places. There's a bunch of videos of me doing it on Instagram. I practice, and I think it's good to understand how to be accurate. I've been a fan of your podcast for a long time.

You don't often talk about it because you're always kind of looking forward, but if you look at the old studio, they just left. Is there some epic memories that stand out to you that you almost look back? I can't believe this happened. Oh yeah, almost too many of them to count. Is there something that pops into mind now? All of them, Elon Musk blowing that flame thrower in the middle of the hallway.

I got a video of that. Have you seen the video of it? Yeah, I think it post that Instagram. I think I did too. Yeah, he's a mad man. Having Bernie Sanders in there, you know, just all the fun fight companions we did and all the crazy podcasts with Joey Diaz and Duncan Trussell. There was so many. there were so many moments, you know, it's, um, podcast is, this is a

weird art form and it almost seems like it sounds silly, but it almost seems like something that chose me rather than I chose it. I think of that all the time in some strange way. It's like I'm, I'm showing up as like an antenna and I just plug in and twist twist on. And then I take in the thing and I put it together and I'm a like a passenger of this weird ride. Yeah, you've talked about this before. I really like this idea of that human beings are just carriers of these ideas. Yeah. Ideas are the ones who are breeding. So in a sense

like the idea found you as a useful brain to use the spread itself through the podcasting medium. Something that's on the, but because when I think about your podcast, I think about Joey Diaz. I think about all those comedians you've had, I mean, I think you've had Joey on, I mean, maybe close to 50 times, such some some crazy number is there. I mean, he is over the top offensive, just as who he is to the core. Is there some sense where you, you wondered like whether it's right to have the Spotify episode number one with Duncan Trussle for five hours. No.

No, I wanted to do it that way. That's why we wore NASA suits and we got high as fuck. It's like, that's the whole idea behind it. I mean, can you introspect that a little bit? Like, what is that? Because that's rare. It's such a rare thing to do because you're not supposed to talk to a Dr. Trussle with a huge platform that you have five hours.

Why not? Because Donald Trump apparently watches your podcast. So just the idea that there's these, I mean, that's what I think about, these CEOs write to me that they listen to the podcast that I do. And I have somebody like a David Fraver. And I was nervous about it. I was nervous to have a conversation. For me, David Fraver is a Dunkin' Trussle, which is like...

Just because there is experiences with the UFOs. Yeah, just even just the way he sees the world, because he is open. I don't know if he's always like this But he opened himself to the possibility of unconventional ideas Most people in the scientific community kind of say well I don't really want to believe anything that doesn't have a lot of hard evidence Right and so that was to me like a step and as the thing somehow Because more popular that it becomes this fear of like, well, should I talk to this person or not? And I mean, you're an inspiration in saying,

I do whatever the hell you want. You have to. First of all, I have what you call fuck you money. And if you have fuck you money, you don't say fuck you, what's the point of having the fuck you money? You're wasting it. Like you're wasting the position.

Like someone said to me like, why do you like sports cars so much? Like how many cars do you have? A bunch of cars. Like because if I was a kid and I said, hey, if I was that crazy rich famous guy, like I don't want to have a bunch of cool fucking cars. Like so I would do that.

Like because not everybody gets to do that. Like if you're the person that gets to do that, you're kind of supposed to do it. Like, that's, if you want to, if that really does speak to you. And, you know, I've talked to you about this before, muscle cars specifically once with the 1960s and the early 70s, they speak to me in some weird way, man,

I could just stare at them. Like, I have a 65-core vet, I walk around it sometimes at night, when no one's around. I just stare at it. Like I have a 65 Corvette, I walk around it sometimes at night when no one's around. I just stare at it. What's your favorite muscle car? Like what's your most bad ass late 60s? Probably that car. Probably that 65 Corvette. Yeah, I walk around it when no one's around. I think I'm doing a 69 Corvette. Is there a particular year that just 65 is generation two 69 is generation three 69 is like the It's even more curvy. They're both awesome. Just awesome in different ways But I just love muscle cars for whatever reason, but but the point is like I like what I like and if I can do what I want to do

I should do what I want to do and it's not hurting anybody and And the thing is, I would do the Duncan podcast if no one was listening, right? Right. If we were just starting to do a podcast together and no one cared, no got like 2000 views, which we did for years. For a long time. I would do a Duncan and we would get high and we'd talk crazy shit about aliens, the spaceships and maybe dude, maybe ideas are living life forms and they're inside your head and that's how things get man Man

I've been just kind of morphed me and him together and that because the life form idea life form ideas mind that I've I've really I've really think about a lot. I think about a technical side by the way I got I when I heard you say that because I've been thinking I was like, whoa, that's interesting. That's too. It might be, they might be alive because they, I don't know what the fuck they are, but when someone has an idea for, you know, whatever an invention, a toaster, and then they think about this, all it needs is like these heating elements in the spring and then it pops on the stunts to have a timer, and then they build this thing. Now all of a sudden, it's alive.

It's like you manifested it in a physical form. Toaster is not the best example, but a car, an airplane, you're thinking about a thing, like an idea comes into your head and you can say, oh, well, it's just creativity. It's a part of being a person. That's how we invented tools and how, you know, we became better hunters. All those things are true. It's not, I'm not saying that there's some magic to what I'm saying, but there's also a possibility that we're simplifying something by saying that it's just creativity, that it's just a natural human inclination

to invent things, but why? Is it possible that ideas, like creativity, like we are the only animal other than there's a few species that create things like bees make beehives, but it's very, very uniform. You know, some animals use tools, you know, like, you know, champs will use like sticks to get termites and things like that, but there's something about what we do that's, it makes you wonder because we look at the skit just look at this room that we're in look at all these electronics look at all this crazy shit that

human beings have invented and then built upon others inventions and proved and innovated these all came out of ideas like the idea they it germinates in someone's head, it bounces around, they write it down, they share it with others, the other people who have similar ideas or ideas that are complementary, they work together, and they change the world. And the new thing in that is the idea is not the people. It's like, we think we found the ideas, but it's more like the ideas. The ideas found us. Find you. Yeah. They're essentially in the air. Yeah. They come to you. I always felt like that with bits. Like when I come up with a bit, it's why I'm always telling people that Stephen Presfield booked the War of Art because he talks about respecting the muse and the idea that

your ideas come when you sit down and you do the work or you sit down like a professional and you talk to the muse, like tell me what to do. Like if the muse was a real thing, as if a muse is like a some mystical creature that comes and delivers you ideas. Even if that's not real, that's how it works. It does work like that. If you do treat it like it's a muse

and you treat it with respect and you treat it like a professional, the ideas do come to you. I never thought about what he's doing is just sitting there waiting for the idea that's trying to breed to find him. Yeah, that's a trippy thing. If you show up, if you show up and put in the time and focus your energy on that, the ideas, they will arrive. They will arrive, and that's the same with writing comedy. Like, there's been many, many times where I'll come home from the comedy store, and I just sit down and I start writing,

and I just, I got nothing, there's nothing there. I'm just writing, it's all bullshit. Nothing's good, it's just like, hmm, and then I'll say, bam, there's the idea. And then you may all say, and I can't stop, and then, you all of a sudden, bam, there's the idea. You know, all of a sudden I can't stop, and then a couple of hours later, and I'm like, whoa, and then the next night I'm on stage, and I'm like, how about that?

Boom, it gets this big laugh, I'm like, holy shit. And I know that came out of the discipline to sit down and call the muse. I mean, the cool thing is the ideas have found you to like, oh, I'm going to use this dude. Like he seems to have a podcast that's popular. I'm going to breathe inside his brain and spread it to others. Yeah. It's the same. And it or an inventor, you know, I'm going to use this guy who's like desperately seeking some sort of a product to bring to market. Some guy who wants to invent things is thinking about inventing things all the time.

Like these ideas, the weasel they're way into your head. And it seems to me also that the frequency that your mind operates under has to be correct. Because one of the things about creativity seems to be if you think about yourself a lot, if you're really into yourself or your image or your selfish, those ideas are not, they don't find you. That's funny. The idea is. The cycle is a creative, yeah, it's stifles the opportunity that the idea has for defining

ideas. Which is one of the reasons why joke thieves, people that steal jokes are terrible writers. There's never like really good writers who are also joke thieves. It's just joke thieves and then you know when they have to write on their own if they get exposed they become terrible comedians. They're of a shadow of what they were when they were stealing other people's ideas because the thing that would make you steal a person's idea is that ego part.

The like the wanting to claim it for yourself. the wanting to be the man, or the woman, I don't wanna be the person who gets out there, it says it, and everybody's gonna love me for it. You can't think like that and be creative. It requires a humility, and it requires a detachment from self in order to create. When I'm writing, I'm blank, I'm just staring. I'm just the part of my. I'm like, I'm just staring. I'm like, I'm just

the part of my mind that's active is not like me. It's like this weird core function part where I'm not, I'm not aware of my personality. I'm not aware of any of that. I'm just trying to put it together in a way that I know works. It's just being there, being present as the press field is just, I'm big trying to put it together in a way that I know works. Just being there, being present at the press field, it's just, I'm big believer, just sitting there, even staring at a blank page, putting in the time. Yeah, and sometimes it's not that way.

Sometimes it's an inspiration, like sometimes I'll be sitting there at dinner and I'll be like, I got an idea. And my wife's really cool about that. I'm like, I have an idea and I go, blah, blah, blah, I have to just run out of the room real quick and I write it down on my phone and then I can come back. Because those are like little gifts

that you get sometimes from the universe out of nowhere. And some people rely only on those gifts. You know, and I've talked to comics about it like, oh, I can't come on my best ideas when I don't write. I'm like, no, I do too. I come up with great ideas when I don't write, but I also write. Like, you can do both of those things. They're not mutually exclusive.

You mentioned fuck you money. I feel like I have fuck you money now. A year ago, I was at zero, I have fuck you money now because probably my standard is my, I don't need much in this world, but because also, probably because of you, but it's 300 to 400,000 people is in every episode I do. And that result is weird.

That's a successful television show on cable. Yeah, it's crazy. But it's all you. Yes. That's amazing. But at this point, that also resulted in a few money in a sense that I don't need anything else in this world, but so by way of asking I've looked up if you've inspired me for a long time Do you have advice?

You've done this on the podcast side of life Do you have advice for somebody like for me and somebody like me? Going on this journey Eric Weinstein is going on this journey. Is there advice, both small and big that you have for somebody like me? The advice is to keep doing what feels right to you and do what you're doing. Obviously, it's resonating with people. If you're getting that big of an audience and I've listened to your podcast, you're very good at it. So just keep doing it the way you're doing it. Don't let anybody else get involved. What about you've connected, I think you met Jamie at the Comedy Store. I met

at the ice house. I thought I met at the Comedy Store but then we talked at the ice house. I mean, what did you have to ask him? Yeah, did you think deeply about, because like, I mean, what did you have to ask him? Yeah, did you think deeply about, because like, you know, you basically have nobody on your team. And so it almost feels like a marriage. Where you selective about like a James, to somebody to bring into your little circle. Well, Jamie's exceptional.

He is. He's a special, I mean, he might have grown, I don't remember how he was in the early days, maybe you could say, but he grown. He was definitely better at it, but he right away. He's exceptional. He's got very little ego. He's not a guy who needs a lot of attention. He's not a guy who overestimates anything like in terms of like a negative or positive like his like his is interpretation of Whether it's a good things that happened to the show or bad things that happen to show

He just takes it all like flat He's chill. He's just cool as fuck and he's so smart And he's so good as an audio engineer and as a podcast producer. He's the best But he's basically one of the only people on this whole team. So how do you find, I mean, when you let people in, I mean, I'm sure other people wanted to get involved. Like, why don't you have a co-host? Like, you basically kind of, well,

do you? Well, here's the problem with the co-host. Like, when you and I are talking, when we're talking, I'm tuned in to you. And I'm waiting to hear what you're saying. I'm listening and I are talking, when we're talking, I'm tuned into you. And I'm waiting to hear what you're saying. And I'm listening and I'm interpreting it. And then I'm calculating whether or not I have anything to say, whether it'll let you keep talking, whether I maybe have a question that lets you expand further or whether I have a disagreement or like, there's a dance that's going on. Now, when there's another person there,

chiming in too, it fucks the dance up. It's like dancing, like, have you doing a dance with someone, like if you're slow dancing with someone? And then a third person's there, step it on it with feet. Sometimes it's fun. Sometimes having a third person is fun. Comedy podcast, sometimes it's fun.

Debait companions. Debait companions. Kind of structured. Yeah, debate structures. But even then, it gets difficult because people talk over each other. And also, I find that without headphones, it's way easier to talk over each other. It makes mistakes.

You don't hear it the same way. When you have headphones, I hear what you hear. It's all one sound. And the audience hears exactly or rather I hear exactly with the audience hear. Whether it's over here, my voice is louder than yours because you're over there and if I don't have headphones on, it doesn't sound all together. On that point, one of the interesting things about your show is you don't almost never have

done and you just generally don't do remote, like, sorry, not remote calls, is you don't almost never have done and you generally don't do a remote like, sorry, not remote calls, but you don't go to another person's location. Like you have only done a few for small handful. And just like with the Sapolsky, he should be, yeah, he should do this. But I actually, we went back and forth on email, I told him he used to get your, his ass back in this, in this studio. He's working on a book. I was a fan of his long time ago

because I became obsessed with Toxoplasmosis. And I've reached out to him a long time ago before he was willing to do it. Then I caught him in downtown LA. He was there for something else. And I just greedily snatched up an hour of his time. Well, he doesn't get, I think, some of those folks don't get how much magic can happen in this podcast studio, like bigger than anything they've ever done in terms of their work.

Not, I'm not talking about reach, but in terms of the discovery of new ideas, there's something magical about conversation. Like that, like somebody as brilliant as him, if he gives himself over to the conversation for multiple hours at a time, that's another place where you've been in inspiration, where I like, you know, I'm getting more and more confidence of telling people like in Elon Musk that like, you know,

a lot of CEOs are like, well, he has 30 minutes on his schedule. I'm like, no, three hours. So, and then they're like, so some say no, and then they come back, those people have started coming back to like, okay, we're starting to get it. They start to get it. And you're a rare beacon of hope in that sense

that there's some value in long form. They think that nobody wants to listen for more than 30 minutes. They think like I have nothing to say, but the reality is, if you just give yourself over to like the three hours, just let it go, three hours, four hours, whatever it is, there's so much to discover about what you didn't even know you think. Yeah. Yeah, you have to be confident that you could do it. And in the beginning, I just did it

because that's what I wanted to do. And no one was listening. So I've always been a curious person. So I've always been interested in listening to how people think about things and talking to people about their mindset and just Expanding on my own ideas and just talking shit and so we would have these podcasts and they would go on forever and my My friend are I've never let him died and never let this die down

Let him forget this. He was always like you have to edit your podcast. I'm telling you right now. You're fucking up I go why he's like because people are not gonna listen to it. I go they don't have to Yeah, I go you listen to part of it. He goes just do it. Just I'm telling you trust me cut it down It's like 45 minutes. It's all you need and I'm like no no, I don't think you're right I go I like listening to long-form things. No one has that kind of time. Okay, I'm gonna do it I'm just gonna keep doing it this way. So, and it's just six a good. No, he doesn't. His, his, his are like two and a half hours long now.

He's great at it. You won. But you wouldn't, like, say, I mentioned to you just before, this is gonna happen. It's actually made a lot of progress towards it. I'm gonna talk to Putin. But you wouldn't travel to Putin if you wanna talk to you. Putin is a dangerous character.

He's not, He's not. He's not. You're talking to every scene, the thing with Jerry Kraft, where he stole his Super Bowl ring. Yeah. Yeah, those. I think that was a little bit of misunderstanding. Oh, really?

I think it's a little bit. He just decided he's going to steal that Super Bowl ring kind of. I think those kind of guy. Can I see your ring? He shows him his ring and then he puts it puts it on says I can murder somebody with this ring So he and then he walks off with it. It's possible. He did it as a he's a big believer in displays of power Yeah, so like it's possible he did that but I think he sees himself as like a tool with which to demonstrate that Russia still belongs on the stage of the big players.

And so a lot of actions are selected through that lens, but in terms of a human being, outside of any of the evils that he may or may not have done, he is a really thoughtful, intelligent, fun human being, like the wit and the depth from the JRE perspective is really interesting. I'm like his manager now selling. He's a judo guy. He's really good at judo. I have seen him practice judo. He's a legit black belt.

And not only that, he loves it. Not just skill wise, but to talk about it, to reason about it, to think about it, to MMA as well. So, you know, it'd be a good conversation, but you wouldn't travel to him. Well, that's whole to your principle. So that's the core of the advice. I don't know to whatever. I would rather.

Here's the thing. There's not a person that I have to have on the show. And I'm happy to talk to anybody. I'm just as happy to talk to you as I am to talk to Trump, as I am probably more happy to talk to you, as I am to talk to Mike Tyson, as I am to talk to Joey D.

I like talking to people. I enjoy doing podcasts. I enjoy talking to a variety of people. And I schedule them based on I want to like I try not to get too many right-wing people in a row or too many progressive people in a row. I don't want to get repetitive. I try not to get too many fighters in a row. I try to balance it out. Not too many comedians. Comedians are the one one group where I can have three, four in a row, five in a row, because that's my tribe. You know, those are my people.

It's easy. We can talk about anything. It's a weird dance, you know. The conversations that you're doing on a podcast are they're a strange dance. And you wanna, you know, you wanna not step on your own feet and you wanna make sure that you do it in a way, do the podcast in a way

that's entertaining for people. It's a conversation, so learning how to talk to me, it's a weird skill. It's a weird skill that took a long time for me to get good at. And I didn't know it was a skill until I started doing it. And then I just thought you're just talking. I was just, I know how to talk, we just talk to people. And then along the way, I realized, oh, and then when you talk to people that are bad at it, you realize that it's a skill.

Like particularly, one of the things about my people, about comedians is a lot of them tend to want to talk but don't want to listen. Right. So they're waiting for you to stop talking so they can talk, but they're not necessarily thinking about what you're saying. You know, and they're just waiting for their opportunity

or they talk over you or they, and I try real hard not to do that. Sometimes I fail, but when I'm at my best, I'm dancing. Yeah, ultimately the skill conversation is just really listening. Like really, and listening and thinking. Listening and thinking, and being genuinely curious,

and really having a take on what they're saying, and maybe a follow-up question, or maybe it's gotta be real, it's gotta be authentic. And when it is authentic and it's real, it resonates with people, like they're listening, and they go Oh, like I'm locked in with the way you're thinking. Like you two guys are in a conversation and I'm locked in, you know, when she talks and you listen, I'm listening to, you know, when he says something to her or when she says something to him, like there's a thing that happens during conversations where you're there. Like you're listening to a, and it's with me, when I listen to a good podcast,

I feel like I'm in the room. I feel like I'm in the room, and I'm like, like I'm like the friend that got to sit down and listen. I go, yeah, that's a great conversation. You know, I love conversations. So I love listening to them, and I love putting them together. And the fact that this podcast has gotten so fucking big It's stunning to me it blows me away. I never anticipated it never thought for a second that that stupid thing that I used to do in my couch In my my office was the biggest thing I've ever done in my life by far like people used to make fun of it Like there's a comedy store documentary that's coming out in one of the parts of the documentaries.

My friend Tom Segura, when he first started doing my podcast, he would be leaving and he would talk to Redbanny. He's like, what the fuck is he doing? Like why is he doing this? Like who's listening? He's like, how some people like it? And he's like fucking nonsense, waste of time. And like in the documentary shows like 2000 views,

like one of the early use-treme episodes. It's hilarious. And they don't just like it. Really, they form a friendship with you. It's like even me, when people come up to me, like the love in their eyes is kind of beautiful. It's weird, right? Yeah, it's like.

You're part of their life. Yeah. And I don't know. It's also heartbreaking because you realize you'll never really get to know them back. Like, because they clearly are friends with you. Yeah. And it's sad to see a person who's clearly brilliant and interesting and is friends with

you. But you don't get a chance to return that love. And I mean, it's- My kids, it took them a while to figure out what's going on. But people come up to me and they would say something like, hey man, I fucking love you. Thanks man. All right, hey brother, nice to meet you. My daughter was like six. She's like, do you know him? Yeah. I'm like, no, I don't know him.

She's like, how does he know you? I'm like, it's very weird conversation I used to have with young kids when I'd explain I do this thing called podcast and millions of people listen. So now one of my daughters is 12 and one of her friends is 13 and he's a boy and he goes to school with her and he's obsessed with me. And so she's weirded out and she says to him, I don't even think you like me. I think you're just into my dad, you fucking weirdo.

She's gonna have that conversation with your stages in her life. Like that part conversation with a boyfriend. Yeah, probably. Yeah, that one thing about men too, this podcast is, my podcast is uniquely masculine. I'm a man. I'm also a man that doesn't have to go through some sort of a corporate filter.

I'm not going through executive producers to tell me, don't have this guest on. Don't talk about that. We looked at focus groups and they don't seem to like when you do this. There's none of that. I just do it. I have a whole podcast where I just talk about cars. People are like, I don't want to hear you talk about cars. Well, good. Congratulations.

You found what you like. Here's good news. There's 1,500 other ones. Go listen to the other episodes where I don't talk about cars. You don't have to listen. It's not like your brand. You just are who you're. And that's what you do. But it's like, it's authentically what I'm interested in. All the podcasts, whether I'm talking to David Fraver about his experience with UFOs, whether I'm talking to

Davidson Claire about life extension, whether I'm talking to you about artificial intelligence or what it's because I want to talk to these people. And that resonates. I like when people are in a shit. You know, I've talked about this before, like things that I have no interest in making furniture, but I like this PBS show, this guy makes furniture by hand. I love watching it. I asked him, because he's so into it. He's expanding this and polishing that.

I'm not going to do that. I don't give a fuck about furniture. Furniture for me is function, like this desk. Function, it works. But I love when people are into it. You know, I'm happy that someone can make it and they do a great job. But I'm not interested in the task

or even the finished product as much as I'm interested in someone's passion for something. The passion that they've put into this, that shines through. Last question. I sometimes ask this just for to, what is it? To challenge, to make people roll their eyes, to make legitimate scientists roll their eyes, ask, what is the meaning of life? According to Joe Rogan. But you not think there is a meaning. I think there's many, many meanings of life. I think there's a way to navigate life that's enjoyable.

I think it requires many things. It requires, first of all, requires love. You have to have loved ones, you have to have family, you have to have friends, you have to have people that care about you and you have to care about them. I think that is primary. Then it also requires interests. There has to be things that stimulate you. Now, it could be just a subsistence lifestyle. There's many people that believe and practice

this lifestyle of just living off the land and hunting and fishing and living in the woods, and they seem incredibly happy. And there's something to be said for that. That is an interest, right? There's something and there's a direct connection between their actions and their sustenance. They get their food that way. They're connected to nature and it's very satisfying for them. If you don't have that, I think you need something that is interesting to you, something that's you're passionate about. And there's far too many people that get sucked into living a life where you're just doing a job, you're just showing up and putting in your time and then going home. But you don't have a passion for what you're doing. And I think that is, that's the recipe for a boring and very

unfulfilling life. You mentioned love, if it could be a backtrack. What we talked about, the demons and the violence in there somewhere. What's the role of love in this, in your own life? It's very important, man. And that's one of the reasons why I'm so interested in helping people. I'm very interested in people feeling good. I like them to feel good. I want to help them. I like doing things that make them feel like, oh, you care about me. Yeah, I care about you. I really do. I want people to feel good. I want my family to feel good. I want my friends to feel good. I want guests to feel good about the podcast experience. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. I'm a big good. I want my family to feel good, I want my friends to feel good, I want guests to feel good about the podcast experience. You know, I am a big believer in as much as I can, the spread positive energy and joy and happiness and relay all the good advice that I've ever gotten. All the things that I've learned and if they can benefit people, then I find that those things benefit people and that actually improve the quality of their life or improve their success, or improve their relationships, or I'm very happy to do that.

That means a lot to me. The way we interact with each other is so important. It's one of the reasons why someone gets canceled or you get publicly shamed. It's so devastating because there's all these people that are negative, all this negative energy coming your way and you feel it as much as you like to pretend that you're immune to that kind of stuff

and some people do like to pretend that, you feel it. There's a tangible force when people are upset at you and that's the same with loved ones or family or anytime someone's upset at you, whether it's a giant group of people or there's a small amount of people. That has an impact on you and your psyche and your physical being.

So the more you can spread love and the more love comes back to you, you also create this butterfly effect, right? Because where other people start recognizing like, oh, you know, when he's nice to me, I feel better, and then I'm going to be nicer to people. And when I'm nicer to people, they feel better. And I feel better. And it spreads outward. And that's one thing that I've done through this podcast, I think, is I've I've imparted my personal philosophy on in kindness and generosity to other people.

Yeah, I mean, to correct you, you didn't do it. The ideas that are breeding themselves through your brain have figured out the ideas that are alive in the air that made their way into my head. Love is a more efficient mechanism of spreading ideas they figured out. Yes. Probably, man. Probably. So, as far as like the meaning of life, that's a bit, without that, you have nothing. You know, one of the biggest failures in life is to be extremely successful financially,

but everybody hates you. Everybody hates you and you're just miserable and alone and angry and depressed and sad. You know, when you hear about rich, famous people that commit suicide, like, wow, you've missed the mark. You got some parts right, but you put too many eggs in one basket. You put too many eggs in the financial basket or the success basket or the accomplishment basket,

and not enough in the friendship and love basket. And there's a balance to that. And when I talked about the violence and all that stuff, like that to me is me, understanding recognizing that is me trying to achieve that balance. It's to kill those demons so that this boat is level. Because if it's not, the boat is like this and then everything's all fucked up

and every time we hit a wave, things fall apart. Balance that boat out, figure it out. Know who you are. Some people don't have that problem at all. Some people, they could just go for walks and they're cool as a cucumber. I need more. I need kettlebells.

I need a heavy bag. I need the echo bike, aerosol bike. I need some hardcore shit. And if I don't get that, I don't feel good. So I figured that out too. And that makes me a nicer person. That makes my interactions nicer. It changes the quality of my friendships

and my relationships with people. I think we mentioned Eurolink. I can certainly guarantee that this is one of the memories I'll be replaying 20, 30 years from now once we get the feature ready. Joe, it's a huge honor to talk to you. I hope it's an honor to talk to you, too, man. I'm back. I came down here for this the first week of me doing this here and it's it's it's very cool to have you always. I hope you make Texas cool again and and and do your podcast another 10 11 whatever however many years you could you're still on this earth. All right thank you brother. Appreciate you man. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Joe Rogan and thank you to our sponsors, Neuro, A Sleep and Dollar Shave Club. Check them out in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast.

If you enjoyed this thing subscribe on YouTube or view it with 5 stars and up a podcast, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon or connect with me on Twitter, Alex Friedman. And now, let me leave you with some words of wisdom from Joe Rogan, the universe rewards, calculated risk, and passion. Thank you.