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 chimps and 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, I am humbled to be able to call him a friend if you enjoy this thing.

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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. Could be. That's kind of a stoic thing to meditate on death.

There's there's a bunch of philosophers, Ernest Becker and Sheldon Solomon. They believe that death is at the core of everything, wrote this book, Worm 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 we have finite life spans. I think there's there's great power in that because it motivates you. It gets you going. I think being an immortal 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 rise over or above from year, like from your daughter's perspective. Did 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 this is and it's a small thing, like in terms of the like the possibilities of things that can happen to the world, like a pandemic, like the one we've experienced. It really just doubles the amount of deaths on a bad flu year. It's, relatively speaking, is a small thing in comparison to super volcano eruptions, asteroid impact, a real horrific pandemic or one that, you know, really wipes out millions and millions of people.

It's. It's stunning how fragile civility is, it's stunning how fragile our society really is that something like this can come along. Some unprecedented thing, unprecedented thing can come along. And all sudden everybody's out of work for six months and then everybody's at each other's throats and then politically, everyone's at each other's throats.

And and then with the advent of social media and the images that you can see 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, ah, have racial problems in this country largely been alleviated?

I probably say yes, way better than it's ever been before. But now you could argue that it's not. Now, you could argue that no, it's way worse and just a small amount of time. It's way worse than it's ever been during my lifetime. Well, while I'm aware of it, you know, obviously when I was a young boy in the 60s, there were still going through the civil rights movement. But now it just seems very fever pitched.

And I think a lot of that is because of the pandemic and is because of all the the heightened just tension.

The one I liken it to 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 like what up?

People go crazy because they're 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. Feels like everybody is already at an eight. So anything that comes along, it's like light at 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 out of 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 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 it, 20, 25, that's a better world than today. What is. How do we get them? 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 OK.

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 if Trump wins, people are going to be furious. And I think if Biden wins, people are going to be furious, particularly if things get more woke. You know, if people continue to enforce this force compliance and make people behave a certain way and act a certain way, which seems to be a part of what this whole WOAK thing is, that 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. Like 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. Yeah, it's all 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 that black and he's a black guy, says Black Lives Matter is a white cult.

And I'm like, well, you see that picture? It's hard to argue that he's got a point. I mean, 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 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, OK, 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? Then 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 and shot one that has nothing to do with Black Lives Matter. He's a white guy, shot another white guy. It's just it's just madness, you know? And 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 whoever saw that comment, nobody saw that coming. 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 it could be anything.

I mean, we could be looking at Mad Max, we could be looking at the apocalypse. We could 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. That's the very beginning. And there is something in the way you communicate about the world.

Maybe there's others, but you're the one I was aware of is you're open minded and like loving towards the world, especially as the park has developed, like you just demonstrated and lived this kind of just kindness or maybe even like lack of jealousy in your own little profession of comedy. It was clear that you didn't you didn't succumb to the weaker aspects of human nature and thereby inspire people like me who I was. I was naturally probably especially in the 20s, early 20s, kind of jealous and 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 twenty, twenty five. 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 the things you discuss that could create a better twenty, twenty five?

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 as often as I can, but I also think that I've fallen into this weird category, particularly with the Spotify deal where, you know, I'm one of them now.

I'm not a regular person anymore. Now I'm like some famous rich guy.

So you go from being a regular person to a famous rich guy that's out of touch, you know, and that that's a real issue whenever you're talking about the economy, about just real life problems.

It's interesting. 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, people I think people are just voicing their worry.

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 an attack vector, right? Yeah. And I think he's right. I think they just they can dismiss you by just saying, oh, you're you're just or that, you know, you're a you know, you're easily definable.

Right.

But I mean, there's truth to that. You if you're not careful, you can become out of touch. But, you know, that's an interesting thing. Like why haven't you become out of touch? Like as a human off the podcast is you don't act like a. Like, you talk to somebody like me, you don't talk like a famous person or you don't 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 to, but I've talked to especially kind of group of people that like Nobel Prize winners, let's say they have sometimes have an ear to them, that sense of arrogance. And you don't.

What's that about? Well, you got to know what that is, right? Like that air of arrogance comes from drinking your own Kool-Aid. You start believing that somehow or another, just because you're getting praise from all these people that you really are something different.

Usually it exemplifies there's 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, struggle physically, I struggle mentally in that we're talking about on the podcast we did previously, you and I on my podcast said I'm not a fan of my work.

I'm not a fan of what I do. I'm a my harshest critic. So any time 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 there. You have to 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 and 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 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 of the top and it becomes unmanageable and messy. And that's how my psyche is. If I if I have too much energy, if I'm not found, 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 too tense. I'm I'm too quick to be upset about things too.

But when I work out hard and, you know, I put in a brutal training session, everything's fine.

Well, the first time I talked to you on Jerry, you were doing so October, October.

And there is something in your eyes like I think you've talked about that, you know, you exercise the demons out essentially. So you exercise to get whatever the parts of you that you don't like out there is a dark. 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.

Because we're competing against each other in these fitness challenges. And you had one point poor, like you got a certain amount of points for each minute that you went to eighty percent of your max heart rate. And one day I got eleven hundred points. So I did seven hours on an elliptical machine watching the bathhouse scene from John Wick. We murders all those people that I watch about fifty 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 my fighting days. It was like the same. That person came out again, was like, oh, I didn't even know he was in there.

So they're like. Look like an assassin, like a killer, like I felt, I felt like. I felt like a like a different person.

Is it echoes of like what Mike Tyson talked about, essentially like the plague, but no orgasmed introduction to all the crazy shit that he was.

But is there is there that is there a violent person in there? Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of violence in me 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 till I was 22, all I did was fight. That was all I did. There was all I did. All I did was train and compete. That's all I did.

I was my whole life.

Is it connected to so, you know, 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 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 if I didn't know me, I'm just even the way I'm built, not even just the working out part is 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 of 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 percent my personality. She's me in a female form. Yeah. But without the anger as much and without the fear like she is, you know, loving household and everything like that.

But she has this intense obsession with doing things and doing things really well and getting better is the point. We have to tell her stop. We stop doing handsprings in the house. Stop, stop. Come on. Just sit down, have dinner. Like one more one more. Like, she's just like she's she's psycho. Yeah.

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 a learned behavior. You know, nature, nurture. 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 there's certainly some genetic violence in me.

There's a child that figured out is basically your life is a productive exploration of how to channel that. Yes. How to figure out how to get get that monkey to sit down and calm down is another person in there is 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 so.

Rocktober, that guy is scary. I don't like that guy. A guy just wants to get up in the morning and go, you know, it's like it's. I mean, when I was competing, it was necessary, but it makes me remember, I didn't really remember what what I used to be like until that it's like when I'm working out seven hours a day and I'm just so obsessed and and always thinking about winning. That's all I was thinking about.

Like, if they were if they were working out five hours a day, I want to 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, pusses, I'm up already. Take pictures, send selfies, you know, like you're going to die.

I kept telling them you're all going to die and try to keep up with me. Are going to die. You weren't fully joking.

No, I wasn't joking at all. That's why I was fucked up about it.

The scary thing when I interacted with Goggins and what I saw in you and during that time is like this guy like this is why I've been avoiding dugong as recently, is because he wants to me he wants to do the talk in this podcast, but he also wants to run an ultramarathon 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 sub October, like I might have to die to get out. Like there's this kind of yeah, there's a competitive aspect.

It's super unhealthy. I mean, you saw the video that we watched earlier today of Gorgons draining his knee. That would stop me from running ever again because I would think in my head, OK, 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. You know, what he calls the dog in him.

You know, he's got that dog is in him all day long and he feeds that dog, you know, and that's that's who he is.

That's one of the reasons why he's so inspirational. And he's fuel 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 just I know 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.

He came out then to that, came out to that guy. 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 nine. I was just going and going and going and going. And I was just thinking just all day long and but it fucks with all the other aspects of your life, fucks with your friendships, fucks with 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 there's a switch of a he stepped into a different dimension.

Roy Jones Junior is coming on my podcast. And, you know, we're always going to be on before the fight. I'm. I'm so curious to see how it goes down, but genuinely concerned because Mike Tyson is a heavyweight and Roy Jones at his best was one hundred sixty eight pounds.

And 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 it. Mike doesn't have a room. He's got an empire in there with the open side door.

He opens the door. There's 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, you could see it in. And by the way, physically in person, he looked spectacular. He looks like a fucking Adonis.

I mean, he looks ready to go. It's crazy watching videos of him.

What about you? Have you ever considered competing in jujitsu?

No, for that very reason. I don't want to get obsessed. That's my mind. No one can try to quit video games. When we were playing video games, the studio, I had to quit because I was playing five hours a day out of nowhere also, and I was playing five hours now. I was coming home late for dinner. I was ending podcasts early and jumping on the video games 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, the very dangerous. For me, the ultimate competitive video game is like jujitsu. And if I was young, I most certainly would have done it if I didn't have like a very clear career path. It was something that I enjoyed. My concern would be that I would become a professional jujitsu 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 taekwondo there. And I knew and I also had my own school in Revere. 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 do have to know how to manage my mental illness. Right. That's that's a very particular mental illness. And I think that mental illness, again, my formative years from fifteen till I was twenty one ish, 22, those 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 is 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. You 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 love 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. I'm fucking with that thing.

So a lot of people ask me, like, what's Rogan's jujitsu game like? Like like like assuming that I somehow spend hours rolling the before and after. I mean, what's a good you should at some point show a technique or something.

That'll be for sure. I mean, I've got. What's your game. What's your take.

Oh I saw I saw you doing a I think had an arm something online.

Yeah I did. That was I fucked my neck up too and had an arm. Chokes I did him 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 do it on that just one side and.

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? What 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?

I don't have good takedowns. 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?

Yeah. Are you comfortable being on your own spot on your back? Yes, I'm very flexible.

So I've got my rubber guard is pretty to go. Yeah, yeah.

I've good arm pass and good triangle's 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.

You have a card, 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 Hooke's from half guard is the game plan for me.

If I can get double under Hooke's from half guard I could sweep a lot under Hooke's of what. Sorry the arms are so.

Lockdown right off guard, go into lockdown, double unhooks, got it clenched to the bodies, suck the body into pressure and massive pressure, and then inch my way into a position we call the dogfight, inch my way to a position where I could get the person on their back.

Yeah, that's what because you did show me I still disagree with you about the type of thing they can do with it. So wrong.

So on. Well, it's not wrong with you.

With you. It's wrong because, you know, I think there's a system where I've have this thing done and how we're going to figure it out.

OK, but I have a little Velcro on the back, so let's see that you're just not cheating. You're not. You're the zakuski. Yeah, you did.

I did feel when you showed me, I think you showed me the rubber guard because it's still got that a little bit foreign to me. I just felt that you gave me the feel not with the rubber guards, but the way you move your body is you're like a Shangai 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, loose.

And they work on transition, transition, transition. You're a control guy. Like, you know how to control position and advance position. Donahoe's the same way he's all about control. My game is much, much my game.

Smosh you grab a hold of you once I have you. Why would I let you go. That's my thought is like why would I let you go. I just want to incrementally move to a better position until I can strangle you. But I'm much more into strangling people than anything else.

I was just a great MMO. Yeah. Approach for jujitsu.

Well too many people don't tap when you get their arms, you know, and it's not I'm not opposed to bars. I love our bars, but everybody goes to sleep.

Yep. And quit from pressure to I mean. Yeah. Quit mentally. Yeah.

It's nothing like 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, you know, like a guard, like a top guard.

And so I can squeeze with both legs that much.

And I'm just I'm just looking for people to make mistakes and slowly, incrementally bettering my position until I can get something locked up. Yeah, I love jujitsu, though, man. I just wish it didn't injure you. Yeah. You know, jujitsu is like if your joints were more durable, they could figure out a way to make joints more durable conic jiujitsu forever.

Yeah, it's fun, actually. I talked to this roboticist, Russ Tetrarchy Build's, one of the world class people that builds humanoid robots. You're interested in Boston Dynamics? Yeah, the key people in that kind of robotics. So I asked them the stupidest question of like, how far are 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 Daniel me like on the wrestling side special, because you have to understand the movement of the human body in ways that are so difficult to teach. It's so subtle.

The timing, the pressure points are like the leverage, all those kinds of things. That's just for the Klensch situation. And then the movement for the striking is very difficult.

As long as you're not allowed as a robot to, like, use your natural abilities of having a lot more power, a lot more power and more durable.

Right. The human body, like especially meniscus like like you see the heel game, like everybody is involved, like locks.

He looks like all those guys wind up with torched knees. Everyone's got tortured 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, so goes guys are twenty eight years old, 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?

Self-defense for sure. Jujitsu? Yeah, for wrestling.

I think grappling. I should say what judo as well, especially in a cold climate.

If you get someone who's got like a heavy winter jacket on, my God, like judo is an incredible concrete, does the worst place to be with a 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 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. I think 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 Maga talk, which is like, you know, the whole line of argument that says that jujitsu 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 of violence that is involved in like a self-defense situation that is a totally different set of skills would be needed in general.

The people that say that jiujitsu or other martial arts don't, it's more of a sport and they don't really understand and 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. Are you going to bite me? OK. Do you think I'm going to bite you too? What do you think of that? What if I punched you in your fucking face? You think you're still going to bite me when you can't even see, when you barely 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 know I have a chance.

So someone's much better. You know, they trip you and get you on your back and then they fucking elbow you and your face and get a head and arm choke on you. All that crap. Oh, my gosh. It's out the window, son.

You're way better off learning what works on train killers like this whole idea that you're going to poke someone in the eye and then you're going to 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 its 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, like all that practice self-defense.

And they got to kind of come at you with a knife.

You going to grab the wrist and do that like it's good to know self-defense, but it's much more important to understand martial arts comprehensively when you understand martial arts comprehensively, like there's no craft since it is no crop of guys.

But it's it would be shocking if a Krav Maga guy and a mixed martial arts guy had a fight and then mixed martial arts guy was a trained killer all around. Didn't fuck that guy up. That's 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 going to be able to handle a person who trains with killers on a day to day basis. Her rolls, a jujitsu blackpool's who trains with morti champions like you're the best martial arts of the martial arts at work on martial artists, not the martial arts that work on untrained people.

What about we're in Texas now? What about guns? So that's the best martial art now. 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. The Second Amendment, the whole idea of the Second Amendment gets distorted by mass shootings or by terrible people, murder people and do terrible things.

But it's that 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 their loved ones or they have stopped shooters.

There's many of these stories, but people don't like those stories because then it it tends to lead to this gun culture argument is pro gun culture argument that people find very uncomfortable. It's it's human beings are messy and we're messy in so many different ways. Right. We're messy emotionally. We're messy, messy physically, but we're also messy. And what's good or bad, what's we want things to be binary one things to be right or wrong, you know, one or zero.

And they're not. But 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 better off knowing how to defend yourself and you're better off having a gun.

And 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 makes puts me at ease knowing that so many people in this country have guns that I mean, Alex Jones, I just listen to one episode of Infowars 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 what's happened throughout history like this. There's something to worry about there. But it's it puts me at ease knowing that so much of the population has guns, that people government would think twice before instituting martial law in 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 in West Philly, when some guy looks at you, you can immediately calculate that this is dangerous human being there.

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 violent situations like serious something where you could die versus if I had a gun, I feel like I would want to be.

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 no one can 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, carry on me.

That's a different situation and much harder to get a warrant or a license for that, you know, control concealed carry licenses, especially in Massachusetts. They don't come easy. Well, yeah, that's a whole nother thing. Yeah. Oh, you're saying gun in the home.

Yeah. The gun in the home, having a gun, knowing how to use a gun. I know how to use a gun. I trained, you know, many hours learning how to shoot a gun at tactical places. You know, there's a bunch of videos of me doing it on Instagram.

I, I practice. And I think it's good to to understand that to be accurate.

So I've been a fan of your podcast for a long time. You don't often talk about it because you 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 like you almost look back? I can't believe this happened. Oh, yeah. Almost too many of them to count.

So something that pops into mind, all of them. Elon Musk blowing that flamethrower in the middle of the hallway. I got a video of that. Have you seen the video of it? Yeah, I think you posted on Instagram. I think I did, too.

Yeah. He's a mad man. Haven't Bernie Sanders in there, you know, just all the fun fake companions we did. And all the crazy podcast with Joey Diaz and Duncan Trussell. And there was so many there were so many moments.

You know, it's a podcast. This is a weird art form. And it almost seems like it sounds silly, but 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 like a passenger of this weird ride that 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 in a sense, like the idea following you as a useful brain to use to spread itself through the podcasting medium. Yeah. Something. And but because when I think about your podcast, I think Bojo ideas, I think about all those comedians you've had.

I mean, I think you've had Jodean, I mean maybe close to 50 times for some crazy number is there.

I mean, he is over the top offensive. Just that's who he is to the core. Is there some sense where.

You you wonder, like, whether it's right to have the Spotify episode number one dress for five hours.

So what do you 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 where it's such a rare thing to do, because you're not supposed to talk to Trussel with a huge platform that you have five hours. Why not? Because Donald Trump apparently watches your butt.

So so just the idea that there's these I mean, that's what I think about, you know, these CEOs right. To me that they listen to the podcast that that I do. And I have somebody like a David Favre.

And I was nervous about it. I was nervous to have a conversation for me. David Favre is the Duncan Trussell, which is like just because of his experiences with UFOs.

Yeah, just even just the way he sees the world, because he is open and 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 becomes 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 and 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 fucked you money, you don't say fuck you. What's the point of having the fucking money?

You're wasting it like you're wasting the position. Like someone said to me, like, why do you why do you like sports car so much?

Like, how many cars do you have? A bunch of cars? 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 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. If you, if you want to if that really does speak to you and, you know, talk to you about this before muscle cars specifically once in the 1960s and the early 70s, they speak to me some weird way, man.

I could just stare at them like I was at 65 Corvette. I walk around it sometimes at night when no one's around.

What's your favorite muscle car like? What's your most badass? Late 60s, the probably that car.

Probably that 65 Corvette.

Yeah, I walk around it when no one's around.

I think I drove sixty nine Corvette.

Is there a particular year that just sixty five is generation to 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 the thing is, like, I would do the Dunkin podcasts if no one was listening. Right. There was if we were just starting to do a podcast together and no one cared. And we got like two thousand views, which we did for years, long time, I would do a Dunkin and we would get high.

We talk crazy shit about aliens and spaceships and maybe, dude, maybe ideas are living life forms and they're inside your head. And that's how things get man.

Yeah, man, I've just kind of morphed me and him together, not because the life form idea of life form idea is mine that I've I've really I really think about a lot.

I think about on the technical side, by the way, I got I when I heard you say that because I've been thinking I was like, oh, well, that's interesting.

That might be they might be alive because 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 need is like these heating elements in the spring and then it pops and starts, have a timer and then they build this thing. Now, also, 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 just a few species that create things like bees, make beehives and but it's very the very uniform. You know, some animals use tools, you know, like, you know, chimps 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 sky, just look at this room that we're in and look at all these electronics.

Look at all this crazy shit that human beings have invented and then built upon others inventions improved and innovated.

These all came out of ideas like the idea it germinates in someone's head, it bounces around, they write it down to share it with others, the other people who have similar ideas or ideas that are complementary, they work together and then they change the world.

And the new thing and that is the ideas, not the people. It's like we think we found the ideas, but it's more like the ideas, the ideas found outside you. Yeah, they're essentially in the in the air.

Yeah. They come to you.

I always felt like that with bits like when I come up with a bit, that's why I'm always telling people the Steven Pressfield book, 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 you talk to the muse, like, don't tell me what to do. I give the muse was a real thing, as if you muses like some mystical creature that comes and delivers you ideas.

Even if that's not real. That's how it works. Yeah, it does work like that. If you do treat it like it's a muse and you treat it with the respect and you treat it like a pro.. 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 that's a trippy thing.

If you show up Trappy, if you show up and put in the time and focus your energy on that, the ideas that will arrive, that will arrive. And that's the same with writing comedy. It there's been many, many times where I come home from the Comedy Store.

I just sit down and start writing and I just I got nothing and there's nothing there. I'm just writing. It's all bullshit. Nothing's good. It's just like. Hmm.

And then also bam, there's the idea emails and I can't stop. And then, you know, a couple hours later and I'm like, whoa.

And then the next night I'm on stage and I'm like, how about that? And oh, get 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 I'm going to use this dude, like he seems to have a podcast that's pop them.

I'm going to bring inside his brain. Yeah. And spread it to others. Yeah. It's the same as an 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 wants to invent things. He's thinking about inventing things all the time, like these ideas that weasel their way into your head.

And it seems to me also that you're 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 you're selfish, those ideas are not they don't find you funny.

The people, the creative. Yeah. Yes. It stifles the opportunity that the idea has put to finding. Yes.

Which is one of the reasons why joke thieves people steal jokes are terrible writers. There's never like really good writers who are also joke these. 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 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 to wanting to be the man or the woman. You know, you want to be the person who gets out there and says it and everybody's going to love me for it. Like, you can't think like that and be creative. It requires a humility and it requires a detachment from self in order to create like when I'm writing, I'm blank.

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, I'm not aware of any I'm just trying to put it together in a way that I know works.

And just being there, being present stressful is just a big believer, just sitting there staring at a blank page and 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 back. I got an idea and my wife is really cool about that. I have an idea and I go, 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, you know, because those are 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 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 fucking money now, a year ago I was at zero. I have fucking money now because probably my standard, my I, I don't need much in this world, but because also probably because of you. But it's three hundred to four hundred thousand people isn't every episode I do it. And that is weird. It's a television show on cable.

Yeah. It's crazy. It's all you get is hilarious. Amazing.

But at this point that also resulted in a few money in a sense that I don't know, I don't need anything else in this world. But so by way of asking, I've looked up. 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 their 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 resonated 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 him at the house at I. Well, I think I met him at the Comedy Store, but then we talked at the ice house. I mean, what you have to ask him, did you think deeply about because like, you know, you basically have nobody on your team.

And so it almost feels like a marriage is a where you selective about like a Jamie to somebody to bring into your little circle? Well, Jamie is exceptional.

He is he is a he's a special. I mean, he might have. I don't remember how he was in the early days, maybe you could say, but he was definitely better at it.

But he right away he's exceptional. He's got very little ego. Yes. He's he's not a guy who needs a lot of attention. He's not a guy who overestimates anything like in terms of negative or positive, like his like his his interpretation of whether it's good things that happen to the show or bad things that happened 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, yeah.

How do you find I mean, when you let people in, I mean, I'm sure other people want to get involved. Like, why don't you have a co-host like you basically. Kind of.

Well, you will. Here's the problem with a 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. And I'm listening and I'm interpreting it. And then I'm calculating whether or not I have anything to say, whether will 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 to it fucks the dance up.

It's like dancing. Like if you're doing a dance with someone, you know, like if you're slow dancing with someone and the third person's their step, it can be weird feet. Sometimes it's fun. Yeah. Sometimes having a third person is fun. Comedy podcast. Sometimes it's fun. Debate competitive structure. 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.

You make mistakes. Yeah. You don't, 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 what the audience here is, whether it's over here.

My my voice is louder than yours because you're over there. And if I don't have headphones on, it doesn't. Not all together.

And 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 like, say, not remote calls, but you don't go to another person's location like you.

I've only done a few small handful. And just like with Sapolsky, he should be.

Yeah, he should do this. But I actually we went back and forth on email. I told him he needs to get your his ass back in this industry. He's working on a book.

I was a fan of his long time ago because I became obsessed with toxoplasmosis, you know, and I I've reached out to him a long time ago before he was willing to do it.

But then I caught him in downtown L.A. 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 to, 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 a 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 an inspiration, where I like you know, I'm getting more and more confident of telling people like Elon Musk that, like, you know, a lot of CEOs are like, well, he has thirty minutes on his schedule.

I'm like, no, three hours or so.

And then they're like, so some say no.

And then they come back. There's people have started coming back to like, OK, we're starting to get it.

They start to get it. And you're a rare beacon of hope in that sense that there is some value in long form. They think that nobody wants to listen for thirty four, more than thirty minutes. They think, like, I have nothing to say.

But the reality is, if you just give yourself over. 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 I've always been interested in listening to how people think about things and how and talking to people about their mindset and just expanding on my own ideas, just talking shit.

And so we would have these podcasts and they would go on forever. And my my friend, I'd never let them never let this die down. They've let him forget this. He was always like, you have to do your podcast, Tony, right now you're fucking up. I go, Why? He's like because people are not going to listen to it. I go, they don't have to.

Yeah, I go. You listen to part of it because he was just do it just I'm telling you, trust me, cut it down like forty five minutes. That's all you need.

And I'm like no, no I don't think you're right. I like listening to long form things.

No one knows what kind of time think, OK, I'm going to do it, I'm just going to keep doing it this way so and so.

You know, he doesn't listen to his ears are like two and a half hours long. Now is a great one.

But you wouldn't, like, say I mentioned this before and it's going to happen. It's actually made a lot of progress. So I'm going to talk to Putin. But you wouldn't travel to Putin if you want to talk to you.

Putin is a dangerous character.

He's not he's not here to talk to see the thing with Jerry Kraft with a Stoles Super Bowl ring.

Yeah, yeah.

Those I think those are a little bit of misunderstanding. Oh, really? I think it's a little bit he just said he's going to steal that Super Bowl ring.

Kind of I think it was kind of he thought, can I see your ring? He shows off his ring that he puts it on, says I could 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 in the stage of the big players. And so he a lot of action is selected through that lens.

But in terms of 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 Jarry perspective is really interesting. I'm like his manager now selling the he's a judo.

He's really good at judo. I have seen him practice judo and 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 I may as well. So, you know, it'd be it'd be a good conversation, but you wouldn't travel to him. Well, that holds your principal, so that's the core of the advice. I don't know 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 Diaz. 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 to 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 or 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 or they're a strange dance and you want to you know, you want to not step on your own feet and you want to make sure that you do it in a way to do the podcast in a way that's entertaining for people.

And it's it's the conversations are learning how to talk to me.

It's a weird skill. Yeah. 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 were just talking like, oh, I know how to talk. We just talk to people. And then along the way I realized like, 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 my when I'm at my best, I'm I'm dancing.

The ultimately the skill conversation is just really listening. I'm like, really and listening and thinking, listening and thinking and being genuinely curious and really having, you know, a take on what they're saying and and maybe a follow up question or maybe just it's got to be real. It's got to be authentic.

And what 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. Are 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, when she says something to to him, like there's a thing that happens during conversations where you are. They're like, you're listening to her 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, I'm I'm like the friend that got to sit down and listen.

Like, Oh, yeah, it's a great conversation. Yeah. You know, I love conversation, 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. I never thought for a second that that stupid thing that I used to do on 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. And one of the parts of the documentary is my friend Tom Sigurður. When he first started doing my podcast, he would he would be leaving and he would talk to read Barnet's like, what the fuck is he doing?

Like, why is he doing this? Like, who's listenings?

Like how some people like it and it's like fucking nonsense waste time. And like in the documentary shows like Two Thousand Views, like one of the early Ustream episodes, Larrys, and they don't just like it really.

They 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. Weird, right? Yeah. It's like you're part of their life. Yeah.

And it I don't know, it's it's also heartbreaking because you realize you'll never really get to know them back, like because they, they clearly are friends with you.

Yeah. Yeah.

And it's sad to see a person who's clearly brilliant and interesting and as friends with you, but you don't get a chance to return that love.

And I mean my kids, it took them a while to figure out what's going on. But people come up to me and, you know, 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, like, do you know him? Yeah. Like, no, I don't know him.

She's like, how does he know you?

Like, this is a very weird conversation that I used to have with young kids. When I explain, I do this thing called a podcast and millions of people listen. So now one of my daughters is twelve and one of her friends is thirteen.

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 think you like me, I think you're just into my dad fucking weirdo. She's going to have that conversation a few stages in our life. I like that conversation with the boyfriend. Yeah, probably. Yeah, that.

Well, that's the thing about men to this. This podcast is my podcast is uniquely masculine. I'm a man and I'm not 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 don't have this guest on. Don't talk about that. You know, we looked at focus groups and they don't they don't seem to like when you do this, like, there's none of that.

I just and I, I just do it. So if so, I have a whole podcast or just talk about cars and people. I don't want to hear you talk about cars. Well, good. Congratulations. You found what you like.

Here's good news. There's fifteen hundred other ones. Go listen to the other episodes. I don't talk about cars. You know, you don't have to listen.

And it's not like your brand. You just know who you are and that's what you do.

But it's like it's authentically what I'm interested in all the podcast, whether I'm talking to David forever about his experience with UFOs, whether I'm talking to David Sinclair about life extension, whether I'm talking to you about artificial intelligence or whether it's because I want to talk to these people. Yeah. And that that resonates. I like when people are in the 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 Rassman because he's so into it. Is expanding this polishing.

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, and I'm happy that someone can make it and they do a great job. But I'm not I'm not interested in the task is or the 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, whether that's what is the meaning of life.

According to Joe Rogan, I do 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, it 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. Yeah, and there's there's something to be said for that. That is an interest. There's something and there's a 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 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 a recipe for boring and very unfulfilling life. You mentioned love. If I could just 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 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 I like doing things that make them feel like, oh, you care about me like, you know, I care about you. I really do. Like, 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. You know, I am I'm a big believer in as much as I can to spread positive energy and joy and happiness and and relay all the good advice that I've ever gotten, all the things that I've learned.

And if they can benefit people and I find that those things benefit people 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 I like someone gets canceled or you get. Ashamed it's so devastating because it's all these people that negative, all this negative energy coming your way and you feel it as much as you like to pretend that you you're immune to that kind of stuff. And some people do like to pretend that you feel it. There's a there's a tangible force when people are upset at you.

And that's the same with loved ones or family or any time someone is 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 where other people start recognizing like, oh, you know, when he says 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.

And I mean, to correct you, you didn't do it.

The ideas that are breeding themselves through your brain have the ideas that are in the air made their way into my head.

Love is a more efficient mechanism of spreading ideas. They figure it out.

Yes, probably, man. Probably so. As far as like the meaning of life, that's that's a 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 you hear about rich, famous people that commit suicide, like, wow, you 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 of that stuff like that to me is me understanding, recognizing that it's me trying to achieve that balance as still I go kill those demons so that this boat is level, you know, because if it's not, then the boat is like this and then everything's all fucked up.

And every time we hit a wave, things fall apart, bounce that boat out, figure it out like 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. You know, I need kettle bells. I need a heavy bag. I need I need the echo bike, you know, air assault 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. And that makes my interactions nicer. It makes it changes the quality of my my friendships and my relationships with people.

I think we mentioned NewLink. I can I can certainly guarantee that this is one of the memories I'll be replaying twenty, thirty 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 to do. I came down here for this the first week of me doing this here.

And it's it's very cool to have you always I hope you make Texas cool again and and do your podcast another ten, eleven, whatever, however many years you're still on this earth. All right.

Thank you, brother. Appreciate you, man. Thanks for listening to that conversation with Josh Rogin, a thank you to our sponsors, Neuro Asleep and Dollar Shave Club, check them out in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it with five stars and have a podcast, follow on Spotify, support on Pichon or connect with me on Twitter, Allex Friedman. And now let me leave you some words of wisdom from Joe Rogan.

The universe rewards calculated risk and passion. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.