#127 – Joe Rogan: Conversations, Ideas, Love, Freedom & The Joe Rogan Experience

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 [and] that we have finite lifespans—I think there's great power in that because it motivates you [and] gets you going ... One of the things that makes life so interesting and fascinating is that it doesn't last. You really get a brief amount of time here.

First of all, I have what you call 'fuck you money,' and if you have fuck you money and you don't say fuck you, what's the point of having the fuck you money? You're wasting it.

There are 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's the recipe for a boring and very unfulfilling life.

I'm not a fan of my work. I'm not a fan of what I do. I'm my harshest critic. So, anytime anybody says something bad about me, I'm like, 'Listen, I've said way worse about myself.' 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 can be good as a comedian—there's no other way ... You have to be picking apart everything you do.

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 the stupid thing that I used to do in my couch in my office was the biggest thing I've ever done in my life, by far. People used to make fun of it.

There's not a person that I have to have on [The Joe Rogan Experience]. I'm happy to talk to anybody. I'm just as happy to talk to you as I am to talk to Trump—I'm 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.

One of the biggest failures in life is to be extremely successful financially, but everybody hates you... and you're just miserable and alone and angry and depressed and sad. When you hear about rich famous people that commit suicide... 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.

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.

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. The part of my mind that's active is not like me; it's like this weird core function part where 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.

When I see these protests and riots and chaos and so much anger in the world today... Because of the pandemic and the fact that so many folks are out of work and through no fault of their own can't make ends meet... 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. This feels very chaotic and dangerous.

There's a lot of violence in me for sure ... 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 ... All I did was train and compete ... That was my whole life.

Podcasts [are] a weird artform, 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 showing up as an antenna, and I just plug in, twist on, and then I take in the thing and I put it together. I'm like a passenger of this weird ride.

I don't know what [the world] looks like in five years. So, in 2025, to answer your question, it could be anything. 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.