back to indexJoe Rogan: Fear, Love, Chaos, and the Joe Rogan Experience | Lex Fridman Podcast #127
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The following is a conversation with Joe Rogan
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that we recorded after my recent appearance
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on his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience.
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Joe has been a inspiration to me
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and I thank to millions of people
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for just being somebody who puts love out there in the world
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and being genuinely curious about wild ideas
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from chimps and psychedelics to quantum mechanics
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and artificial intelligence.
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Like many of you, I've been a fan of his podcast
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for over a decade and now, somehow, miraculously,
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am humbled to be able to call him a friend.
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If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube,
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review it with five stars on Apple Podcast,
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follow on Spotify, support on Patreon,
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or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.
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Today's sponsors are Neuro, Eight Sleep, Dollar Shave Club,
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and Olive Garden, home of the Unlimited Breadsticks
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and Brian Redband's favorite restaurant.
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Check out the first three of the sponsors
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in the description to get a discount
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and to support this podcast.
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I usually do full ad reads here and never ads in the middle
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but this time, I'll just go straight to the conversation
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with a bit of guitar first.
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["The Unlimited Breadsticks and Dollar Shave Club"]
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Do you ponder your mortality?
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Are you afraid of death?
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I do think about it sometimes.
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I mean, it does pop into my head sometimes,
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just the fact that, I mean, I'm 53,
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so if everything goes great, I have less than 50 years left.
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If everything goes great, like no car accidents,
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But it could happen today.
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This could be your last day.
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That's kind of a stoic thing to meditate on death.
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There's a bunch of philosophers,
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Ernest Becker and Sheldon Solomon,
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they believe that death is at the core of everything.
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Wrote this book, Warm at the Core.
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So does that come into play in the way you see the world?
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I think having a sense of urgency is very beneficial
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and understanding that your time is limited
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can aid you greatly.
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I think knowing that this is a temporary time,
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that we have finite lifespans,
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I think there's great power in that
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because it motivates you, it gets you going.
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I think being an immortal, living forever
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would be one of the most depressing things,
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particularly if everybody else was dying around you.
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And I think one of the things that makes life
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so interesting and fascinating is that it doesn't last.
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You know, that you really get a brief amount of time here
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and really by the time you're just starting
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to kind of figure yourself out, who you are
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and how not to screw things up so bad,
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What about from your, like,
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from your daughter's perspective?
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Do you think about the world we're in now
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and what kind of world you're gonna leave them?
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And do you worry about it?
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I do when I see these protests and riots and chaos
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and so much, so much anger in the world today.
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And then particularly today,
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I think because of the pandemic
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and the fact that so many folks are out of work
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and through no fault of their own
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and can't make ends meet
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and these people feel so helpless and angry,
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it's a particularly divisive time.
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It's a particularly turmoil filled time.
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And it just doesn't seem like the world of a year ago even.
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It feels very chaotic and dangerous.
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And it's a small thing,
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like in terms of the possibilities of things
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that could happen to the world,
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like a pandemic like the one we've experienced,
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it really just doubles the amount of deaths
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on a bad flu year.
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So it's relatively speaking is a small thing
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in comparison to super volcano eruptions,
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asteroid impact, a real horrific pandemic
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or one that really wipes out millions
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and millions of people.
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It's stunning how fragile civility is.
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It's stunning how fragile our society really is
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that something like this can come along,
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some unprecedented thing,
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unprecedented thing can come along
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and all of a sudden everybody's out of work for six months
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and then everybody's at each other's throats.
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And then politically everyone's at each other's throats.
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And then with the advent of social media
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and the images that you can see with the videos
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of police abuse and just racial tensions
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are at an all time high to a point where like,
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if you asked me just five or six years ago,
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like have racial problems in this country
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largely been alleviated,
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I'd probably say, yeah,
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it's way better than it's ever been before.
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But now you could argue that it's not.
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Now you could argue it's no, it's way worse
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in just a small amount of time.
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It's way worse than it's ever been during my lifetime
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while I'm aware of it.
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Obviously when I was a young boy in the 60s,
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they were still going through the civil rights movement,
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but now it just seems very fever pitched.
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And I think a lot of that is because of the pandemic
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and is because of all the heightened just tension.
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What I liken it to is road rage.
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Cause you know, people have road rage,
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not just because they're in the car
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and no one can get to them,
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but also because you're at a heightened state
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because you're driving fast
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and you know you're driving fast.
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You know, you have to make split second movements.
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And so anybody doing something, you're like,
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what the people go crazy
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because they're already at an eight
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because they're in the car and they're moving very quickly.
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That's what it feels like with today with the pandemic
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feels like everybody is already at an eight.
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So anything that comes along,
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it's like light it all on fire, you know, burn it down.
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Like that's part of what I think is part of the reason
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for a lot of the looting and the riots and all the chaos.
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It's not just the people that are at work,
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but it's also that everyone feels so tense already
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and everyone feels so helpless.
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And it's like, you know, doing something like that
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makes people, it just, it gives people
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a whole new motivation for chaos,
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a whole new motivation for doing destructive things
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that I've never experienced in my life.
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And your better days when you see a positive future,
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what do you think is the way out of this chaos of 2020?
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Like if you visualize a 2025,
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that's a better world than today.
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How do we get there and what does that look like?
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It's a good question.
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I can honestly say I don't know.
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And I wouldn't have said I don't know a year ago.
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A year ago, I would have said, we're gonna be okay.
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As much as people hate Trump, the economy is doing great.
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I think we're gonna be fine.
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That's not how I feel today.
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Today, I don't think there's a clear solution politically
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because I think if Trump wins,
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people are gonna be furious.
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And I think if Biden wins, people are gonna be furious.
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Particularly like if things get more woke,
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if people continue to enforce this force compliance
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and make people behave a certain way and act a certain way,
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which seems to be a part of what this whole woke thing is.
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The most disturbing for me is that I see what's going on.
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I see there's a lot of losers that have hopped on this
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and they shove it in people's faces
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and it doesn't have to make sense.
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Like there was a Black Lives Matter protest
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that stopped this woman at a restaurant.
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They were surrounding her outside a restaurant.
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They were forcing her to raise her fist in compliance.
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This is a woman who's marched for Black Lives multiple times,
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Black Lives Matter multiple times.
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And the people all around her doing this were all white.
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My friend, Coach T, he's a wrestling coach,
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is also on a podcast, my friend, Brian Moses.
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His take on it is that black, and he's a black guy.
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He says, Black Lives Matter is a white cult.
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And I'm like, when you see that picture,
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it's hard to argue that he's got a point.
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I mean, it's clearly not all about that,
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but there's a lot of people that have jumped on board
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that are very much like cult members.
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Because the thing about Black Lives Matter or any movement
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is you can't control who joins.
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There's no entrance examination.
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So you don't go, okay, how do you feel about this?
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What's your perceptions on that?
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Like the man who shot the Trump supporter in Portland,
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that guy who murdered the Trump supporter
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then the cops shot him.
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That guy was walking around with his hand on his gun
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looking for Trump supporters.
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Just want, I mean, he's a known violent guy
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who was walking around looking for Trump supporters,
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found one and shot one.
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That has nothing to do with Black Lives Matter.
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He's a white guy, he shot another white guy.
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It's just madness.
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And that kind of madness is,
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it's disturbing to see it ramp up so quickly.
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I mean, there's been riots in Portland every night.
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Oh, excuse me, demonstrations for 101 days now.
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101 days in a row of them lighting things on fire,
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breaking into federal buildings.
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It's like, whoever saw that coming?
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Nobody saw that coming.
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So I don't know what the solution is
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and I don't know what it looks like in five years.
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But 2025, to answer your question,
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like it could be anything.
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I mean, we could be looking at Mad Max.
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We could be looking at the apocalypse.
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We could also be looking at an invasion from another country.
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We could be looking at a war, like a real hot war.
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To put a little bit of responsibility on you,
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like for me, I've listened to you
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since the Red Band, Olive Garden days,
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that's the very beginning.
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And there was something in the way you communicated
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about the world, maybe there was others,
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but you're the one I was aware of,
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is you're open minded and like loving towards the world,
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especially as the podcast developed.
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Like you just demonstrated and lived
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this kind of just kindness,
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or maybe even like lack of jealousy
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in your own little profession of comedy.
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It was clear that you didn't succumb
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to the weaker aspects of human nature
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and thereby inspire like people like me,
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who I was naturally, probably especially in like the 20s,
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early 20s, kind of jealous on the success of others.
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And you're really the primary person that taught me
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to truly celebrate the success of others.
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And so by way of question, you kind of have a role in this
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of making a better 2025.
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You have such a big megaphone.
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Is there something you think you can do on this podcast
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with the words, the way you talk,
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the things you discuss that could create a better 2025?
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I think if anything, I could help in leading by example,
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but that's only gonna help the people that are listening.
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I don't know what else I can do
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in terms of like make the world a better place,
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other than express my hopes and wishes for that
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and just try to be as nice as I can to people
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as often as I can.
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But I also think that I've fallen into this weird category,
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particularly with the Spotify deal,
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where I'm one of them now.
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I'm not a regular person anymore.
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Now I'm like some famous rich guy.
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So you go from being a regular person
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to a famous rich guy that's out of touch.
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And that's a real issue whenever you're talking
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about the economy, about just real life problems.
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It kind of hurts my heart to hear people say
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about Elon Musk, he's just a billionaire.
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It's an interesting statement.
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But I think if you just continue being you
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and he continue being him,
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I think people are just voicing their worry
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that you become some rich guy.
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I don't even know if they're doing that.
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I think they're just finding,
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the way he describes it, an attack vector.
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Yeah, and I think he's right.
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I think they can dismiss you by just saying,
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oh, you're just a that.
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You're easily definable.
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Right, but there's truth to that.
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If you're not careful, you can become out of touch.
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But that's an interesting thing.
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Why haven't you become out of touch?
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As a human off the podcast, you don't act like a,
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like you talk to somebody like me.
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You don't talk like a famous person
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or you don't act rich, like you're better than others.
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There's a certain, listen, I've talked to quite a few,
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you have too, but I've talked to a special kind of group
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of people that are like Nobel Prize winners, let's say.
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They sometimes have an air to them that's of arrogance.
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And you don't, what's that about?
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Well, you gotta know what that is, right?
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Like that air of arrogance comes from
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drinking your own Koolaid.
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You start believing that somehow or another,
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just because you're getting praise from all these people,
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that you really are something different.
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Usually it exemplifies, there's something there
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where there's a lack of struggle.
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And I think a struggle is
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probably one of the most important balancing tools
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that a person can have.
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And for me, I struggle mentally and I struggle physically.
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I struggle mentally in that, like we were talking about
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on the podcast we did previously,
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you and I on my podcast said, I'm not a fan of my work.
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I'm not a fan of what I do.
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I'm my harshest critic.
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So anytime anybody says something bad about me,
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I'm like, listen, I said way worse about myself.
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I don't like anything I do.
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I'm ruthlessly introspective.
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And I will continue to be that way.
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Cause that's the only way you could be good as a comedian.
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There's no other way.
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You can't just think you're awesome and just go out there.
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You have to be like picking apart everything you do.
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But there's a balance to that too,
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cause you have to have enough confidence
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to go out there and perform.
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You can't think, oh my God, I suck.
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I know what I'm doing, but I know what I'm doing
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because I put in all that work.
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And one of the reasons why I put in all that work
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is I don't like the end result most of the time.
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So I need to work at it all the time.
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And then there's physical struggle,
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which I think balances everything out.
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Without physical struggle, I always make the analogy
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that the body is in a lot of ways like a battery,
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where if you have extra charge,
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it's like it leaks out of the top
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and it becomes unmanageable and messy.
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And that's how my psyche is.
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If I have too much energy,
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if I'm not exerting myself in a violent way,
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like an explosive way, like wearing myself out,
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I just don't like the way the world is.
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I don't like the way I interface with the world.
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I'm too quick to be upset about things.
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But when I work out hard
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and I put in a brutal training session, everything's fine.
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Well, the first time I talked to you, Jerry, you were doing
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And there's something in your eyes,
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like I think you've talked about
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that you exercise the demons out essentially.
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So you exercise to get whatever the parts of you
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that you don't like out.
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There's a darkness in you there,
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like the competitiveness and the focus of that person.
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That was a scary time in a lot of ways,
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that Sober October thing.
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Because my friends, we were all talking shit, right?
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Because we're competing against each other
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in these fitness challenges.
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And you had one point,
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like you got a certain amount of points
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for each minute that you went at 80% of your max heart rate.
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And one day I got 1100 points.
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So I did seven hours on an elliptical machine
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watching the bathhouse scene from John Wick
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where he murders all those people in the bathhouse.
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I watched it probably 50 times in a row.
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I went crazy, but I went crazy in a weird way
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where it brought me back to my fighting days.
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It was like the same, that person came out again.
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It was like, well, I didn't even know he was in there.
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It's like they're like an assassin, like a killer.
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Like I felt like a different person.
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Is it echoes of like what Mike Tyson talked about essentially?
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Maybe, but no orgasm in the oceans.
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All the crazy shit that he was saying.
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Is there a violent person in there?
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Yeah, there's a lot of violence in me for sure.
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I don't know if it's genetic or learned
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or it's because during my formative years
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from the time I was 15 till I was 22, all I did was fight.
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That was all I did.
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That was all I did.
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All I did was train and compete.
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That was my whole life.
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Is it connected to...
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So your mom and dad broke up early on.
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Is it connected to the dad at all?
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I'm sure it's connected to him also because he was violent
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and it made me feel very scared to be around him.
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But I also think it's connected in who he was as a human
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is transferred into my DNA.
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I think there's a certain amount of...
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I mean, to be prejudiced against myself,
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I look like a violent person.
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If I didn't know me, even the way I'm built,
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not even just the working out part,
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just the size of my hands
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and there's the width of my shoulders.
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There's most likely a lot of violence in my history,
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in my past, in my ancestry.
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And I think we minimize that with people.
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So much of your behavior, when I see my daughter,
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I have one daughter that's obsessive
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in terms of she wants to get really good at things
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and she'll practice things all day long.
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And it's 100% my personality.
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She's me in female form.
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But without the anger as much and without the fear,
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she has loving household and everything like that.
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But she has this intense obsession with doing things
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and doing things really well and getting better.
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We have to tell her, stop doing hand springs in the house.
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Stop, stop, come on, just sit down, have dinner.
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Like one more, one more.
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Like she's just like, she's psycho.
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And I think there's a lot of behavior and personality
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and a lot of these things are passed down through genetics.
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We don't really know, right?
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We don't know how much of who you are genetically
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is learned behavior, nature or nurture.
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We don't know if it's learned behavior
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or whether or not it's something
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that's intrinsically a part of you
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because of who your parents were.
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I think there's certainly some genetic violence in me.
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There's certainly.
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And then you channeled it.
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So you figured out it's basically your life
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is a productive exploration of how to channel that.
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Yes, how to figure out how to get that monkey to sit down
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There's another person in there.
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Like there's a calm, rational, kind, friendly person
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who just wants to laugh and have fun.
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And then there's that dude who comes out
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when I did Sober October.
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I don't like that guy.
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That guy just wants to get up in the morning and go.
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It's like, I mean, when I was competing, it was necessary.
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But it makes me remember.
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I didn't really remember what I used to be like until that.
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It's like when I'm working out seven hours a day
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and just so obsessed.
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And all I was thinking about was winning.
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That's all I was thinking about.
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Like if they were working out five hours a day,
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I wanted them to know that I was gonna work out
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an extra three hours and I was gonna get up early
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and I was gonna text them all.
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Hey, pussies, I'm up already.
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Take pictures, send selfies.
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I was like, you're gonna die.
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I kept telling them, you're all gonna die.
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You try to keep up with me, you're gonna die.
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You weren't fully joking.
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No, I wasn't joking at all.
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That's what was fucked up about it.
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This is the scary thing when I interacted with Goggins
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and what I saw in you during that time is like,
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this guy, like, this is why I've been avoiding
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David Ganga's recently.
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Is like, cause he wants to meet,
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he wants to talk on this podcast,
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but he also wants to run an ultra marathon with me.
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And I felt like this is a person,
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if I spend any time in this realm,
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if I spend any time with a Joe Rogan of that sober October,
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like, I might have to die to get out.
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Like, there's this kind of...
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Yeah, there's a competitive aspect that's super unhealthy.
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I mean, you saw the video that we watched earlier today
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of Goggins draining his knee.
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That would stop me from running ever again
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because I would think in my head, okay,
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I'm gonna ruin my cartilage.
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I'm gonna need a knee replacement.
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I would start thinking, I would go down that line,
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but he is perpetually in this push it mindset,
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what he calls the dog in him.
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That dog is in him all day long and he feeds that dog.
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And that's who he is.
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That's one of the reasons why he's so inspirational
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and he's fuel for millions and millions of people.
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I mean, he really is.
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He motivates people in a way that is so powerful,
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but it can be very destructive.
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I know now, especially after the sober October thing,
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that that thing's still in me.
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so I really haven't done anything physically competitive,
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except one time I was supposed to fight Wesley Snipes.
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It came out then too.
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That came out too.
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That got creepy too, but luckily that never happened.
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But that was many months of training,
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like training twice a day, every day,
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kickboxing in the morning, jiu jitsu at night.
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I was just going and going and going and going.
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And I was just thinking just all day long.
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But it fucks with all the other aspects of your life.
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It fucks with your friendships.
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It fucks with my comedy.
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It fucks with everything.
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Because that mindset is not a mindset of an artist.
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It's a mindset of a conqueror.
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The conqueror. Yeah.
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That's why it's so interesting to see Mike Tyson
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It's clear that whatever that is, however that fight goes,
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He stepped into a different dimension.
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Roy Jones Jr. is coming on my podcast soon.
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And Roy's going to be on before the fight.
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I'm so curious to see how it goes down,
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but genuinely concerned.
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Because Mike Tyson is a heavyweight.
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And Roy Jones at his best was 168 pounds.
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I don't know if Roy has that room in his house, mental house,
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of where Mike Tyson goes.
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I don't know if he has that room.
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Mike doesn't have a room.
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He's got an empire in there.
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He opens up the door.
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He opens up the door.
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There's a whole empire in his head.
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And he's in that firmly.
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When he got out of the weed and started training again,
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you could see it in him.
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And by the way, physically, in person, he looks spectacular.
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He looks like a fucking Adonis.
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I mean, he looks ready to go.
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Yeah, I watch his videos of him.
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Have you ever considered competing in jiu jitsu?
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No, for that very reason.
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I don't want to get obsessed.
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That's my number one concern.
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I had to quit video games when we were playing video games
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I had to quit because I was playing five hours a day,
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like out of nowhere.
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All of a sudden, I was playing five hours a day.
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I was coming home late for dinner.
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I was ending podcasts early and jumping on the video games
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I get obsessed with things.
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And I have to recognize what that is
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and these competitive things, like competitive, especially
link |
like really exciting competitive things like video games.
link |
They're very dangerous for me.
link |
The ultimate competitive video game is like jiu jitsu.
link |
And if I was young, I most certainly would have done it.
link |
If I didn't have a very clear career path,
link |
it was something that I enjoyed.
link |
My concern would be that I would become a professional jiu jitsu
link |
fighter when I was young.
link |
And then I would not have the energy
link |
to do stand up and do all the other things
link |
that I wound up doing as a career.
link |
When I was 21, I quit my job teaching.
link |
I was teaching at Boston University.
link |
I was teaching Taekwondo there.
link |
And I knew, and I also had my own school in Revere.
link |
I knew I couldn't do it right.
link |
And also be doing stand up comedy.
link |
I knew I couldn't do both of those things.
link |
You have to be cognizant of that obsessive force
link |
within you to make sure.
link |
Yes, I'd have to know how to manage my mental illness.
link |
That's a very particular mental illness.
link |
And I think that mental illness, again,
link |
my formative years from 15 until I was 21ish, 22,
link |
those years were spent constantly
link |
obsessed with martial arts.
link |
That was my whole day.
link |
I mean, I trained almost every day.
link |
The only time I would not train is if I was either injured
link |
or if I was exhausted, if I needed a day off.
link |
But I was obsessed.
link |
And so that part of my personality
link |
that I haven't nurtured is always
link |
going to be there under the surface.
link |
And when it gets reignited by something, it's very weird.
link |
It's a weird feeling.
link |
And it can get reignited with a video game.
link |
It can get reignited with anything.
link |
That obsessive whatever it is, that competitive demon.
link |
Yeah, the way you talk about guitar,
link |
I know you would fall in love with playing guitar.
link |
But I think you're very wise to not touch that thing.
link |
That's why I won't golf.
link |
I have friends who want to golf.
link |
I'm like, mm mm, I don't fucking want that thing.
link |
So a lot of people ask me like,
link |
what's Joe Rogan's jiu jitsu game like?
link |
Like assuming that I somehow spend hours
link |
rolling with you before and after a track.
link |
I mean, what's a good, you should at some point
link |
show a technique or something.
link |
Sure, I mean, I've got this technique online.
link |
Oh, I saw you doing, I think, head and arm something online.
link |
I fucked my neck up doing head and arm chokes.
link |
I did them so much that I,
link |
because you use your neck so much with head and arm chokes,
link |
I developed like a real kink in my neck.
link |
And it turned out I had a bulging disc.
link |
So you do it on that, just one side?
link |
Well, it was, no, I could do it on the left side,
link |
but I definitely am better on the right side.
link |
The right side was my best side.
link |
So if you were to compete, let's say,
link |
like what's your A game?
link |
Where would you go from standing up?
link |
How would you go to submission?
link |
Would you pull guard, would you take down?
link |
How would you pass guard?
link |
I don't have good takedowns.
link |
I was not a good wrestler.
link |
So I would most likely either pull guard
link |
or I would pull half guard.
link |
Do you have a good guard?
link |
Are you comfortable being on your butt, on your back?
link |
Yes, I'm very flexible.
link |
So I have a good, my rubber guard is pretty good.
link |
You go to rubber guard.
link |
Yeah, I have good arm bars and good triangles off my back.
link |
But I also have a very good half guard,
link |
but my top game is my best.
link |
I have a very strong top game.
link |
Do you have a half guard?
link |
Do you have a preference of like what kind of guard
link |
and how to pass that guard?
link |
And like, yeah, like, is there a specific game plan?
link |
Double underhooks from half guard is the game plan for me.
link |
If I can get double underhooks from half guard,
link |
I could sweep a lot of people.
link |
Underhooks of what?
link |
Sorry, the arms or the legs?
link |
So half guard, lockdown, right?
link |
Half guard, go into lockdown, double underhooks.
link |
Suck the body, suck the body.
link |
And yeah, massive pressure.
link |
And then inch my way into a position we call the dog fight
link |
and inch my way to a position
link |
where I could get the person on their back.
link |
Yeah, that's what,
link |
cause you did show me,
link |
I still disagree with you about the tie thing.
link |
That you can choke somebody with it.
link |
So wrong, so wrong.
link |
Well, it's not wrong with you.
link |
With you, it's wrong.
link |
No, I think there's a system.
link |
I have this thing, Madonna hair,
link |
we're gonna figure it out.
link |
There's Velcro on the back.
link |
No, but see, that's, you're just not the.
link |
You're not, you're the exact, that's cheating.
link |
Yeah, you did, I did feel when you showed me,
link |
I think you showed me the rubber guard
link |
cause it's still a guard.
link |
That's a little bit foreign to me.
link |
I just felt that you can immediately feel,
link |
not with the rubber guard,
link |
but the way you move your body is,
link |
you're like a Shanji type of guy
link |
who knows how to control another human being.
link |
So like some people are a little bit more,
link |
I would say agile and technical,
link |
like playful and kind of.
link |
Loose and they work on transition, transition, transition.
link |
You're a control guy.
link |
Like you know how to control position
link |
and advanced position.
link |
Donna hair is the same way.
link |
He's all about control.
link |
Smush you, grab a hold of you.
link |
Once I have you, why would I let you go?
link |
That's my thought is like, why would I let you go?
link |
I just wanna incrementally move to a better position
link |
until I can strangle you.
link |
But I'm much more into strangling people
link |
than anything else.
link |
Yeah, which is a great MMA approach for jiu jitsu.
link |
Well, too many people don't tap when you get their arms.
link |
And I'm not opposed to arm bars.
link |
I love arm bars, but everybody goes to sleep.
link |
And quit from pressure too.
link |
I mean, quit mentally.
link |
There's nothing like that.
link |
You can't breathe.
link |
If you've got a guy who's like a really good top game guy
link |
and he mounts you, and I'm a big fan of mounting
link |
with my legs crossed, like a guard, like a top guard.
link |
And so I can squeeze with both legs, smush.
link |
And I'm just looking for people to make mistakes
link |
and slowly incrementally bettering my position
link |
until I can get something locked up.
link |
I love jiu jitsu though, man.
link |
I just wish it didn't injure you.
link |
Jiu jitsu is like, if your joints were more durable,
link |
they could figure out a way to make joints more durable.
link |
God, I could do jiu jitsu forever.
link |
I actually, I talked to this roboticist, Russ Tedrick.
link |
He builds, he's one of the world class people
link |
that builds humanoid robots.
link |
You were interested in Boston Dynamics.
link |
He's one of the key people in that kind of robotics.
link |
So I asked him the stupidest question of like,
link |
how far are we from having a robot be a UFC champion?
link |
And yeah, it's actually a really, really tough problem.
link |
It's the same thing that makes somebody
link |
like Danielle Comey on the wrestling side special,
link |
because you have to understand the movement
link |
of the human body in ways that's so difficult to teach.
link |
The timing, the pressure points, the leverage,
link |
all those kinds of things.
link |
That's just for the clinch situation.
link |
And then the movement for the striking is very difficult.
link |
As long as you're not allowed as a robot
link |
to use your natural abilities of having a lot more power.
link |
Right, a lot more power and more durable.
link |
The human body, like especially meniscus.
link |
Like you see the heel hook game,
link |
like everybody's involved in leg locks and heel hooks.
link |
Like all those guys wind up with torched knees.
link |
Everyone's got torched knees.
link |
Everyone's knees are torn apart.
link |
And you don't grow new meniscus.
link |
You know, that's like one of those joints where,
link |
man, when it goes, those guys are 28 years old,
link |
they've blown out knees.
link |
Let me ask the ridiculous question.
link |
What do you think, we're talking about cops,
link |
what do you think is the best martial arts self defense?
link |
For sure, jiu jitsu.
link |
I think grappling, I should say.
link |
Judo as well, especially in a cold climate,
link |
if you get someone who's got like a heavy winter jacket on,
link |
my God, like judo's an incredible martial art.
link |
That's the worst place to be,
link |
with a heavy winter jacket with a judo specialist
link |
and you're standing up with them, oh my God.
link |
But I think grappling,
link |
because in most self defense situations,
link |
it usually winds up with grappling.
link |
You're definitely better off, though,
link |
knowing some striking,
link |
because there's nothing more terrifying
link |
than when you go to take someone down,
link |
they actually have takedown skills, but they can fight.
link |
And so they have takedown defense
link |
and they know how to fight,
link |
and then you don't know how to stand up.
link |
Like the worst thing in the world
link |
is seeing someone like reaching
link |
who doesn't know how to do striking and someone cracks you.
link |
What about all that Krav Maga talk,
link |
which is like, you know, the whole line of argument
link |
that says that jiu jitsu and wrestling
link |
and all of these sports, they fundamentally take you away
link |
from the nature of violence.
link |
So they're just teaching you how to play
link |
versus the reality of violence
link |
that is involved in like a self defense situation
link |
that is a totally different set of skills would be needed.
link |
In general, the people that say that jiu jitsu
link |
or other martial arts, it's more of a sport
link |
and they don't really understand violence.
link |
In general, the people that say that suck.
link |
Anybody who thinks like, someone's like,
link |
you know, hey man, I'll just bite you.
link |
I'm like, are you gonna bite me?
link |
Do you think I'm gonna bite you too?
link |
What do you think of that?
link |
What if I punch you in your fucking face?
link |
You think you're still gonna bite me
link |
when you can't even see?
link |
When you barely even know you're alive
link |
and I choke you unconscious?
link |
If someone's really good at jiu jitsu,
link |
good luck stabbing them with your keys.
link |
You know, you don't have a chance.
link |
You don't have a chance.
link |
If someone's much better than you
link |
and they trip you and get you on your back
link |
and then they fucking elbow you in your face
link |
and then get a head and arm choke on you,
link |
all that crap, my gosh, it's out the window, son.
link |
You're way better off learning what works on trained killers.
link |
Like this whole idea that you're gonna poke someone
link |
in the eye and then you're gonna kick them in the nuts.
link |
Like you're going through these drills
link |
that yeah, it's good to know what to do
link |
if you run into someone who doesn't know how to fight.
link |
It's way better to know what to do
link |
to someone who knows how to fight.
link |
That's the best thing.
link |
Learn how to fight against people who know how to fight.
link |
Like all that practice self defense
link |
and they go, it's gonna come at you with a knife.
link |
You're gonna grab the wrist and do that.
link |
Like it's good to know self defense,
link |
but it's much more important
link |
to understand martial arts comprehensively.
link |
When you understand martial arts comprehensively,
link |
like there's no, I shouldn't say there's no Krav Maga guys,
link |
but it would be shocking if a Krav Maga guy
link |
and a mixed martial arts guy had a fight
link |
and the mixed martial arts guy
link |
who's a trained killer all around didn't fuck that guy up.
link |
That's what I would expect would happen.
link |
I would not think that some guy
link |
who has a little bit of this and a little bit of that
link |
and prepares for the streets is gonna be able
link |
to handle a person who trains with killers
link |
on a day to day basis,
link |
who rolls with jujitsu black belts,
link |
who trains with Muay Thai champions.
link |
Like the best martial arts are the martial arts
link |
that work on martial artists,
link |
not the martial arts that work on untrained people.
link |
What about, we're in Texas now.
link |
Well, that's the best martial art.
link |
No, but would you, like in this crazy time,
link |
should people carry guns?
link |
It's not a bad idea to have a gun
link |
because if you need a gun, you have a gun.
link |
And if you don't need a gun,
link |
if you're a person with self control,
link |
you're not gonna use it.
link |
You're not gonna just randomly use it,
link |
but you have something to protect you.
link |
This is the whole idea of the Second Amendment.
link |
The whole idea of the Second Amendment
link |
gets distorted by mass shootings
link |
or by terrible people who murder people
link |
and do terrible things.
link |
But all those things are real,
link |
but they don't take away from the fundamental efficacy
link |
of having a firearm and defending your family
link |
or defending your life.
link |
And there are real live situations
link |
where people have had firearms
link |
and it's protected them or their loved ones
link |
or they've stopped shooters.
link |
There's many of these stories,
link |
but people don't like those stories
link |
because then it tends to lead to this gun culture argument,
link |
this pro gun culture argument
link |
that people find very uncomfortable.
link |
Human beings are messy
link |
and we're messy in so many different ways, right?
link |
We're messy emotionally, we're messy physically,
link |
but we're also messy in what's good or bad.
link |
We want things to be binary.
link |
We want things to be right or wrong, one or zero.
link |
And they're not, but there is crime in the world.
link |
There is violence in the world
link |
and you're better off knowing how to fight
link |
and you're better off knowing how to defend yourself
link |
and you're better off having a gun.
link |
And I generally think that guns,
link |
I do like the idea that guns,
link |
the Second Amendment helps protect the First Amendment.
link |
There's a kind of sense that puts me at ease
link |
knowing that so many people in this country have guns
link |
that, I mean, Alex Jones,
link |
I just listened to one episode of Infowars
link |
for the first time.
link |
Boy, he reminds me like when I drank some tequila,
link |
I felt like I'm going to some dark places today.
link |
That's how I feel like listening to him.
link |
But he talks about like that he worries about martial law.
link |
So basically government overreach by,
link |
which happened throughout history.
link |
Like there's something to worry about there,
link |
but it puts me at ease knowing
link |
that so much of the population has guns
link |
that people, government would think twice
link |
before instituting martial law on cities.
link |
But I actually was asking almost like
link |
on the individual level,
link |
I maybe shouldn't say this, but I don't yet own a gun.
link |
And I felt that if I carry a gun
link |
statistically just for me as a human,
link |
knowing my psychology,
link |
I feel like I'm more likely to die.
link |
Like I feel like I would put myself in situations
link |
Like the way I will see the world will change
link |
because my natural feeling is like when somebody,
link |
when I was in Philly and I knew late at night,
link |
if West Philly, when some guy looks at you
link |
and you can immediately calculate
link |
that this is a dangerous human being,
link |
it starts with a monkey look at first.
link |
Like I'm a bigger monkey than you.
link |
And that's where I found like, for example,
link |
I'll do the beta thing of just looking down
link |
and turning away and just getting out of trouble
link |
like very politely.
link |
And basically that kind of approach,
link |
because if you have,
link |
in terms of getting out of serious violent situations,
link |
like serious something where you could die
link |
versus if I had a gun, I feel like I would want to be,
link |
that there would be that cowboy monkey thing
link |
where I would want to put myself in situations
link |
where I'm a little bit of a savior, even of myself
link |
and almost create danger, which can no longer,
link |
like the escalation of which I can no longer control.
link |
Well, you're talking about taking a gun somewhere
link |
versus having a gun in your home.
link |
Yes, yes, I mean carry on me.
link |
That's a different situation
link |
and much harder to get a warrant or a license for that.
link |
Control, concealed carry licenses,
link |
especially in Massachusetts, they don't come easy.
link |
Well message, yeah, that's a whole nother thing.
link |
You're saying gun in the home.
link |
Yeah, gun in the home, having a gun,
link |
knowing how to use a gun.
link |
Like I know how to use a gun.
link |
I've trained many hours,
link |
learning how to shoot a gun at tactical places.
link |
There's a bunch of videos of me doing it on Instagram.
link |
I practice and I think it's good to understand
link |
how to be accurate.
link |
So I've been a fan of your podcast for a long time.
link |
You don't often talk about it
link |
because you're always kind of looking forward,
link |
but if you look at the old studio that you just left,
link |
is there some epic memories that stand out to you
link |
that like you almost look back,
link |
I can't believe this happened?
link |
Oh yeah, almost too many of them to count.
link |
Is there something that pops into mind now?
link |
All of them, Elon Musk blowing that flamethrower
link |
in the middle of the hallway, I got a video of that.
link |
Have you seen the video of it?
link |
Yeah, I think you posted it on Instagram.
link |
I think I did too.
link |
Yeah, he's a mad man.
link |
Having Bernie Sanders in there,
link |
just all the fun fight companions we did
link |
and all the crazy podcasts with Joey Diaz
link |
and Duncan Trussell and there were so many.
link |
There were so many moments.
link |
Podcasts, this is a weird art form
link |
and it almost sounds silly,
link |
but it almost seems like something that chose me
link |
rather than I chose it.
link |
I think of that all the time in some strange way.
link |
It's like I'm showing up as like an antenna
link |
and I just plug in and twist on
link |
and then I take in the thing and I put it together
link |
and I'm like a passenger of this weird ride.
link |
Yeah, you've talked about this before.
link |
I really like this idea
link |
that human beings are just carriers of these ideas.
link |
Ideas are the ones who are breeding.
link |
So in a sense like the idea found you as a useful brain
link |
to use to spread itself through the podcasting medium.
link |
Because when I think about your podcast,
link |
I think about Joey Diaz.
link |
I think about all those comedians you've had.
link |
I mean, I think you've had Joey on,
link |
I mean, maybe close to 50 times, some crazy number.
link |
Is there, I mean, he is over the top offensive,
link |
just that's who he is to the core.
link |
Is there some sense where you wondered like
link |
whether it's right to have the Spotify episode number one
link |
with Duncan Dressel for five hours?
link |
No, I wanted to do it that way.
link |
That's why we wore NASA suits and we got high as fuck.
link |
It's like, that's the whole idea behind it.
link |
I mean, can you introspect that a little bit?
link |
Like, can you think, like, what is that?
link |
Cause that's rare.
link |
It's such a rare thing to do because you're not supposed
link |
to talk to Duncan Dressel with a huge platform
link |
that you have five hours.
link |
Because Donald Trump apparently watches your podcast.
link |
So just the idea that there's these,
link |
I mean, that's what I think about,
link |
these CEOs write to me that they listen to the podcast
link |
that I do and I have somebody like a David Fravor
link |
and I was nervous about it.
link |
I was nervous to have a conversation.
link |
For me, David Fravor is a Duncan Dressel, which is like.
link |
Just because of his experiences with UFOs.
link |
Yeah, even just the way he sees the world
link |
because he is open.
link |
I don't know if he's always like this,
link |
but he opened himself to the possibility
link |
of unconventional ideas.
link |
Most people in the scientific community kind of say,
link |
well, I don't really want to believe anything
link |
that doesn't have a lot of hard evidence.
link |
And so that was to me like a step.
link |
And as the thing somehow becomes more popular,
link |
there becomes this fear of like,
link |
well, should I talk to this person or not?
link |
And I mean, you're an inspiration in saying like,
link |
do whatever the hell you want.
link |
First of all, I have what you call fuck you money.
link |
And if you have fuck you money, you don't say fuck you.
link |
What's the point of having the fuck you money?
link |
You're wasting it.
link |
Like you're wasting the position.
link |
Like someone said to me like,
link |
why do you like sports cars so much?
link |
Like how many cars do you have, a bunch of cars?
link |
Because if I was a kid and I said,
link |
hey, if I was that crazy rich famous guy,
link |
like I don't want to have a bunch of cool fucking cars.
link |
Like, so I would do that.
link |
Like, cause not everybody gets to do that.
link |
Like if you're the person that gets to do that,
link |
you're kind of supposed to do it.
link |
Like that's if you want to,
link |
if that really does speak to you.
link |
And, you know, I've talked to you about this before,
link |
muscle cars, specifically ones from the 1960s
link |
and the early seventies.
link |
They speak to me in some weird way, man.
link |
I could just stare at them.
link |
Like I have a 65 Corvette.
link |
I walk around it sometimes at night when no one's around.
link |
I just stare at it.
link |
What's your favorite muscle car?
link |
Like what's your most bad ass late sixties,
link |
Probably that car.
link |
Probably that 65 Corvette.
link |
Yeah, I walk around it when no one's around.
link |
I think I've driven the 69 Corvette.
link |
Is there a particular year that just?
link |
65 is a generation two.
link |
69 is generation three.
link |
69 is like the, it's even more curvy.
link |
They're both awesome, just awesome in different ways.
link |
But I just love muscle cars for whatever reason.
link |
But the point is like, I like what I like.
link |
And if I can do what I want to do,
link |
I should do what I want to do.
link |
And it's not hurting anybody.
link |
And the thing is like, I would do the Duncan podcast
link |
if no one was listening, right?
link |
If we were just starting to do a podcast together
link |
and no one cared and it got like 2000 views,
link |
which we did for years.
link |
I would do it with Duncan and we would get high
link |
and we'd talk crazy shit about aliens and spaceships
link |
and maybe dude, maybe ideas are living life forms
link |
and they're inside your head.
link |
And that's how things get made.
link |
I've just kind of morphed me and him together in that
link |
because the life form idea, life form idea is mine
link |
that I've really, I really think about a lot.
link |
I think about on a technical side, by the way.
link |
When I heard you say that, cause I've been thinking,
link |
I was like, whoa, that's interesting.
link |
It might be, they might be alive
link |
because they, I don't know what the fuck they are,
link |
but when someone has an idea for, you know,
link |
whatever an invention, a toaster,
link |
and then they think about this,
link |
all it need is like these heating elements and a spring
link |
and then it pops on the stunts, have a timer.
link |
And then they build this thing.
link |
Now all of a sudden it's alive.
link |
It's like you manifested it in a physical form.
link |
Toaster is not the best example, but a car, an airplane,
link |
you're thinking about a thing,
link |
like an idea comes into your head and you can say,
link |
oh, well, it's just creativity.
link |
It's a part of being a person.
link |
That's how we invented tools
link |
and how, you know, we became better hunters.
link |
All those things are true.
link |
I'm not saying that there's some magic to what I'm saying,
link |
but there's also a possibility
link |
that we're simplifying something
link |
by saying that it's just creativity,
link |
that it's just a natural human inclination to invent things.
link |
Is it possible that ideas like creativity,
link |
like we are the only animal other than,
link |
there's a few species that create things
link |
like bees make beehives and, but it's very,
link |
they're very uniform, you know, some animals use tools,
link |
you know, like, you know,
link |
champs will use like sticks to get termites
link |
and things like that.
link |
But there's something about what we do
link |
that's, it makes you wonder.
link |
Cause we look at the, just look at this room that we're in,
link |
look at all these electronics,
link |
look at all this crazy shit that human beings have invented
link |
and then built upon others inventions
link |
and proved and innovated.
link |
These all came out of ideas.
link |
Like the idea, it germinates in someone's head,
link |
it bounces around, they write it down,
link |
they share it with others,
link |
the other people who have similar ideas
link |
or ideas that are complimentary, they work together
link |
and they change the world.
link |
And the new thing in that is the idea is not the people.
link |
It's like, we think we found the ideas,
link |
but it's more like the ideas found us.
link |
They're literally in the air.
link |
I always felt like that with bits.
link |
Like when I come up with a bit,
link |
that's why I'm always telling people
link |
about the Steven Pressfield book, The War of Art,
link |
because he talks about respecting the muse
link |
and the idea that your ideas come when you sit down
link |
and you do the work or you sit down like a professional
link |
and you talk to the muse,
link |
like come tell me what to do.
link |
Like if the muse was a real thing,
link |
as if the muse is like some mystical creature
link |
that comes and delivers you ideas.
link |
Even if that's not real, that's how it works.
link |
It does work like that.
link |
If you do treat it like it's a muse
link |
and you treat it with the respect
link |
and you treat it like a professional,
link |
the ideas do come to you.
link |
I never thought about what he's doing
link |
is just sitting there waiting for the idea
link |
that's trying to breed to find him.
link |
That's a trippy thing.
link |
If you show up. That's trippy.
link |
If you show up and put in the time
link |
and focus your energy on that,
link |
the ideas, they will arrive, they will arrive.
link |
And that's the same with writing comedy.
link |
Like there's been many, many times
link |
where I'll come home from the comedy store
link |
and I just sit down and I start writing
link |
and I just, I got nothing, there's nothing there.
link |
I'm just writing, it's all bullshit.
link |
Nothing's good, it's just like, hmm.
link |
And then all of a sudden, bam, there's the idea.
link |
And then all of a sudden I can't stop.
link |
And then, you know, it was a couple hours later
link |
and I'm like, whoa.
link |
And then the next night I'm on stage
link |
and I'm like, how about that?
link |
Boom, it gets this big laugh.
link |
I'm like, holy shit.
link |
And I know that came out of the discipline
link |
to sit down and call the muse.
link |
I mean, the cool thing is the ideas have found you
link |
to like, oh, I'm gonna use this dude.
link |
Like he seems to have a podcast that's popular.
link |
I'm gonna breed inside his brain and spread it to others.
link |
Or an inventor, you know, I'm gonna use this guy
link |
who's like desperately seeking some sort of a product
link |
to bring to market.
link |
Some guy who wants to invent things,
link |
is thinking about inventing things all the time.
link |
These ideas, they weasel their way into your head.
link |
And it seems to me also that the frequency
link |
that your mind operates under has to be correct.
link |
Because one of the things about creativity seems to be
link |
if you think about yourself a lot,
link |
if you're really into yourself or your image
link |
or you're selfish, those ideas are not,
link |
they don't find you.
link |
It stifles the creative.
link |
Yeah, it stifles the opportunity
link |
that the idea has to find you.
link |
Yes, which is one of the reasons why joke thieves,
link |
people that steal jokes are terrible writers.
link |
There's never like really good writers
link |
who are also joke thieves.
link |
It's just joke thieves.
link |
And then, you know, when they have to write on their own,
link |
if they get exposed, they become terrible comedians.
link |
They're a shadow of what they were
link |
when they were stealing other people's ideas.
link |
Because the thing that would make you steal
link |
a person's idea is that ego part,
link |
the like the wanting to claim it for yourself,
link |
the wanting to be the man or the woman.
link |
You know, I wanna be the person who gets out there
link |
and says it and everybody's gonna love me for it.
link |
Like you can't think like that and be creative.
link |
It requires a humility and it requires a detachment
link |
from self in order to create.
link |
Like when I'm writing, I'm blank.
link |
I'm like, I'm just staring.
link |
I'm like, I'm just the part of my mind
link |
that's active is not like me.
link |
It's like this weird core function part
link |
where I'm not aware of my personality.
link |
I'm not aware of any of that.
link |
I'm just trying to put it together
link |
in a way that I know works.
link |
It's just being there, being present.
link |
Pressfield is just, I'm a big believer just sitting there
link |
and staring at a blank page, putting in the time.
link |
Yeah, and sometimes it's not that way.
link |
Sometimes it's an inspiration.
link |
Like sometimes I'll be sitting there at dinner
link |
and I'll be like, I got an idea.
link |
And my wife's really cool about that.
link |
I'm like, I have an idea and I blah, blah, blah.
link |
I have to just run out of the room real quick
link |
and I write it down on my phone and then I can come back.
link |
Because those are like little gifts
link |
that you get sometimes from the universe out of nowhere.
link |
And some people rely only on those gifts, you know?
link |
And I've talked to comics about it.
link |
They're like, oh, I can't come up with my best ideas
link |
when I don't write.
link |
And I'm like, no, I do too.
link |
I come up with great ideas when I don't write,
link |
Like you can do both of those things.
link |
They're not mutually exclusive.
link |
You mentioned fuck you money.
link |
I feel like I have fuck you money now.
link |
A year ago I was at zero, I have fuck you money now
link |
because probably my standard is my,
link |
I don't need much in this world.
link |
But because also, probably because of you,
link |
but it's 300 to 400,000 people.
link |
This isn't every episode I do.
link |
And that is weird.
link |
That's a successful television show on cable.
link |
Yeah, it's hilarious.
link |
But at this point, that also resulted in
link |
a few money in a sense that I don't,
link |
I don't need anything else in this world.
link |
But so by way of asking, I've looked up,
link |
you've inspired me for a long time.
link |
Do you have advice?
link |
You've done this on the podcast side of life.
link |
Do you have advice for somebody like,
link |
for me and somebody like me going on this journey?
link |
Eric Weinstein is going on this journey.
link |
Is there advice, both small and big,
link |
that you have for somebody like me?
link |
The advice is to keep doing what feels right to you
link |
and do what you're doing.
link |
Obviously, it's resonating with people
link |
if you're getting that big of an audience.
link |
And I've listened to your podcast.
link |
You're very good at it.
link |
So just keep doing it the way you're doing it.
link |
Don't let anybody else get involved.
link |
What about, you've connected,
link |
I think you met Jamie at the Comedy Store.
link |
I met him at the Ice House.
link |
Well, I think I met him at the Comedy Store,
link |
but then we talked at the Ice House.
link |
You'd have to ask him.
link |
Yeah, did you think deeply about,
link |
because you basically have nobody on your team.
link |
And so it almost feels like a marriage.
link |
Were you selective about somebody
link |
to bring into your little circle?
link |
Well, Jamie's exceptional.
link |
I mean, he might've grown.
link |
I don't remember how he was in the early days.
link |
Maybe you could say, but he's grown.
link |
He's definitely better at it,
link |
but right away, he's exceptional.
link |
He's got very little ego.
link |
He's not a guy who needs a lot of attention.
link |
He's not a guy who overestimates anything.
link |
Like in terms of like a negative or positive,
link |
like his interpretation of whether it's good things
link |
that happen to the show or bad things that happen to the show,
link |
he just takes it all like flat.
link |
He's just cool as fuck.
link |
And he's so smart.
link |
And he's so good as an audio engineer
link |
and as a podcast producer, he's the best.
link |
But he's basically one of the only people
link |
on this whole team.
link |
So how do you find, I mean,
link |
when you let people in,
link |
I mean, I'm sure other people wanted to get involved.
link |
Like, why don't you have a cohost that could,
link |
you basically kind of, well.
link |
Well, here's the problem with the cohost.
link |
Like when you and I are talking,
link |
when we're talking, I'm tuned in to you
link |
and I'm waiting to hear what you're saying
link |
and I'm listening and I'm interpreting it.
link |
And then I'm calculating whether or not
link |
I have anything to say, whether to let you keep talking,
link |
whether I maybe have a question that lets you expand further
link |
or whether I have a disagreement
link |
or like there's a dance that's going on.
link |
Now, when there's another person there chiming in too,
link |
it fucks the dance up.
link |
It's like dancing.
link |
Like if you're doing a dance with someone,
link |
like if you're slow dancing with someone
link |
and then a third person's there
link |
stepping on everybody's feet.
link |
Sometimes it's fun.
link |
Sometimes having a third person is fun.
link |
Comedy podcasts, sometimes it's fun.
link |
Fight companions, yeah, debate structures.
link |
But even then it gets difficult
link |
because people talk over each other.
link |
And also I find that without headphones,
link |
it's way easier to talk over each other.
link |
You make mistakes.
link |
You don't hear it the same way.
link |
When you have headphones, I hear what you hear.
link |
It's all one sound and the audience hears exactly,
link |
or rather I hear exactly what the audience hears.
link |
Whether it's over here, my voice is louder than yours
link |
because you're over there.
link |
And if I don't have headphones on, it doesn't,
link |
it's not all together.
link |
On that point, one of the interesting things about your show
link |
is you don't almost never have done,
link |
and you just generally don't do remote,
link |
sorry, not remote calls,
link |
but you don't go to another person's location.
link |
We have only done a few, a small handful.
link |
And just like with Sapolsky, he should do this.
link |
But I actually, we went back and forth on email.
link |
I told him he needs to get his ass back in this studio.
link |
He's working on a book.
link |
I was a fan of his a long time ago
link |
because I became obsessed with toxoplasmosis.
link |
And I've reached out to him a long time ago
link |
before he was willing to do it.
link |
But then I caught him in downtown LA.
link |
He was there for something else.
link |
And I just greedily snatched up an hour of his time.
link |
Well, he doesn't get, I think, some of those folks
link |
don't get how much magic can happen in this podcast studio.
link |
Like bigger than anything they've ever done
link |
in terms of their work.
link |
I'm not talking about reach,
link |
but in terms of the discovery of new ideas,
link |
there's something magical about conversation.
link |
Like somebody as brilliant as him,
link |
if he gives himself over to the conversation
link |
for multiple hours at a time,
link |
that's another place where you've been an inspiration.
link |
Where I'm getting more and more confidence
link |
of telling people, like in Elon Musk,
link |
that a lot of CEOs are like,
link |
well, he has 30 minutes on his schedule.
link |
I'm like, no, three hours.
link |
And then they're like, so some say no,
link |
and then they come back.
link |
There's people that started coming back to like,
link |
okay, we're starting to get it.
link |
They start to get it.
link |
And you're a rare beacon of hope in that sense
link |
that there's some value in long form.
link |
They think that nobody wants to listen
link |
for more than 30 minutes.
link |
They think like, I have nothing to say.
link |
But the reality is if you just give yourself over
link |
to like the three hours, just let it go,
link |
three hours, four hours, whatever it is,
link |
there's so much to discover
link |
about what you didn't even know you think.
link |
Yeah, you have to be confident that you could do it.
link |
And in the beginning, I just did it
link |
because that's what I wanted to do.
link |
And no one was listening.
link |
So I've always been a curious person.
link |
So I've always been interested in listening
link |
to how people think about things
link |
and talking to people about their mindset
link |
and just expanding on my own ideas, just talking shit.
link |
And so we would have these podcasts
link |
and they would go on forever.
link |
And my friend Ari, I never let this die down.
link |
Never let him forget this.
link |
He was always like, you have to edit your podcast.
link |
I'm telling you right now, you're fucking up.
link |
He's like, because people are not gonna listen to it.
link |
I go, they don't have to.
link |
I go, you listen to part of it.
link |
He goes, just do it.
link |
Just, I'm telling you, trust me,
link |
cut it down to like 45 minutes.
link |
That's all you need.
link |
And I'm like, no, no, I don't think you're right.
link |
I go, I like listening to long form things.
link |
No one has that kind of time.
link |
I go, okay, I'm just gonna keep doing it this way, so.
link |
And it sticks to your gut.
link |
His are like two and a half hours long now.
link |
You won, but you wouldn't like say,
link |
I mentioned to you this before, and this is gonna happen.
link |
It's actually made a lot of progress towards it.
link |
I'm gonna talk to Putin,
link |
but you wouldn't travel to Putin if you wanted to talk to you.
link |
Putin is a dangerous character.
link |
Have you ever seen the thing with Jerry Kraft
link |
where they stole his Super Bowl ring?
link |
I think that was a little bit of misunderstanding.
link |
I think it's a little bit.
link |
He just decided he's gonna steal that Super Bowl ring.
link |
I think it was a...
link |
Can I see your ring?
link |
He shows him his ring and then he puts it on
link |
and says, I can murder somebody with this ring.
link |
And then he walks off with it.
link |
It's possible he did it as a,
link |
he's a big believer in displays of power.
link |
So like, it's possible he did that,
link |
but I think he sees himself as like a tool
link |
with which to demonstrate that Russia still belongs
link |
on the stage of the big players.
link |
And so he, a lot of actions are selected through that lens.
link |
But in terms of a human being,
link |
outside of any of the evils that he may or may not have done,
link |
he is a really thoughtful, intelligent, fun human being.
link |
Like the wit and the depth from the JRE perspective
link |
is really interesting.
link |
I'm like his manager now, selling the, he's a judo guy.
link |
Trying to get Trump, he's really good at judo.
link |
I have seen him practice judo.
link |
He's a legit black belt.
link |
And not only that, he loves it, not just skill wise,
link |
but to talk about it, to reason about it,
link |
to think about it, to MMA as well.
link |
So, you know, it'd be a good conversation,
link |
but you wouldn't travel to him.
link |
Well, that's, hold to your principle.
link |
So that's the core of the advice.
link |
Just hold to whatever.
link |
I would rather, here's the thing.
link |
There's not a person that I have to have on the show.
link |
And I'm happy to talk to anybody.
link |
I'm just as happy to talk to you as I am to talk to Trump,
link |
as I am to, probably more happy to talk to you,
link |
as I am to talk to Mike Tyson, as I am to talk to Joey Diaz.
link |
I like talking to people.
link |
I enjoy doing podcasts.
link |
I enjoy talking to a variety of people
link |
and I schedule them based on, I want to like,
link |
I try not to get too many right wing people in a row
link |
or too many progressive people in a row.
link |
I don't want to get repetitive.
link |
I try not to get too many fighters in a row.
link |
I try to balance it out.
link |
Not too many comedians.
link |
Comedians are the one group where I can have three,
link |
four in a row, five in a row.
link |
Cause that's my tribe.
link |
You know, those are my people.
link |
We can talk about anything.
link |
It's a weird dance.
link |
You know, the conversations that you're doing on a podcast
link |
are, they're a strange dance.
link |
And you want to, you know,
link |
you want to not step on your own feet
link |
and you want to make sure that you do it in a way,
link |
do the podcast in a way that's entertaining for people.
link |
And it's conversations are learning how to talk to people.
link |
It's a weird skill.
link |
It's a weird skill that took a long time
link |
for me to get good at.
link |
And I didn't know it was a skill until I started doing it.
link |
And then I just thought you were just talking.
link |
Like, I know how to talk.
link |
We'll just talk to people.
link |
And then along the way I realized like, oh,
link |
and then when you talk to people that are bad at it,
link |
you realize that it's a skill.
link |
Like particularly one of the things about my people,
link |
about comedians is a lot of them tend to want to talk,
link |
but don't want to listen.
link |
So they're waiting for you to stop talking so they can talk,
link |
but they're not necessarily thinking
link |
about what you're saying, you know?
link |
And they're just waiting for their opportunity
link |
or they talk over you or they,
link |
and I try real hard not to do that and sometimes I fail,
link |
but when I'm at my best, I'm dancing.
link |
Yeah, ultimately the skill conversation
link |
is just really listening, like really,
link |
and listening and thinking.
link |
Listening and thinking and being genuinely curious
link |
and really having a take on what they're saying
link |
and maybe a followup question or maybe,
link |
it's gotta be real, it's gotta be authentic.
link |
And when it is authentic and it's real,
link |
it resonates with people.
link |
Like they're listening and they go,
link |
oh, like I'm locked in with the way you're thinking.
link |
Like you two guys are in a conversation and I'm locked in.
link |
When she talks and you listen, I'm listening too.
link |
When he says something to her
link |
or when she says something to him,
link |
like there's a thing that happens during conversations
link |
where you're there, like you're listening to,
link |
and it's with me, when I listen to a good podcast,
link |
I feel like I'm in the room.
link |
I feel like I'm in the room and I'm like the friend
link |
that got to sit down and listen.
link |
Like, oh, yeah, that's a great conversation.
link |
I love conversations.
link |
So I love listening to them
link |
and I love putting them together.
link |
And the fact that this podcast has gotten so fucking big,
link |
it's stunning to me, it blows me away.
link |
I never anticipated it.
link |
Never thought for a second that that stupid thing
link |
that I used to do in my couch, in my office
link |
was the biggest thing I've ever done in my life by far.
link |
Like people used to make fun of it.
link |
Like there's a comedy store documentary that's coming out
link |
and one of the parts of the documentary is my friend,
link |
Tom Segura, when he first started doing my podcast,
link |
he would be leaving and he would talk to Redband.
link |
He's like, what the fuck is he doing?
link |
Like, why is he doing this?
link |
Like who's listening?
link |
He's like, oh, some people like it.
link |
And he's like, fucking nonsense, waste of time.
link |
And like in the documentary, it shows like 2000 views,
link |
like one of the early Ustream episodes.
link |
And they don't just like it,
link |
really they form a friendship with you.
link |
It's like, even me when people come up to me,
link |
like the love in their eyes is kind of beautiful.
link |
It's weird, right?
link |
You're a part of their life.
link |
Yeah, and I don't know, it's also heartbreaking
link |
because you realize you'll never really get to know them
link |
back like, because they clearly are friends with you.
link |
And it's sad to see a person who's clearly brilliant
link |
and interesting and is friends with you,
link |
but you don't get a chance to return that love.
link |
My kids, it took them a while to figure out
link |
what's going on, but people would come up to me
link |
and they would say something like,
link |
hey man, I fucking love you, thanks man.
link |
All right, hey brother, nice to meet you.
link |
My daughter was like six.
link |
She'd be like, do you know him?
link |
I'm like, no, I don't know him.
link |
She's like, how does he know you?
link |
Like, it's a very weird conversation I used to have
link |
with young kids when I'd explain,
link |
I'd do this thing called the podcast
link |
and millions of people listen.
link |
So now one of my daughters is 12
link |
and one of her friends is 13 and he's a boy
link |
and he goes to school with her and he's obsessed with me.
link |
And so she's weirded out.
link |
And she says to him, I don't even think you like me.
link |
I think you're just into my dad, you fucking weirdo.
link |
She's going to have that conversation
link |
in a few stages in her life.
link |
Like that hard conversation with a boyfriend.
link |
Yeah, probably, yeah.
link |
That was the thing about men too.
link |
This podcast is, my podcast is uniquely masculine.
link |
I'm a man and I'm not, I'm also a man
link |
that doesn't have to go through some sort
link |
of a corporate filter.
link |
I'm not going through executive producers
link |
who tell me, don't have this guest on,
link |
don't talk about that.
link |
We looked at focus groups and they don't seem to like
link |
when you do this, like there's none of that.
link |
So I have a whole podcast where I just talk about cars
link |
and people are like, I don't want to hear you
link |
Well, good, congratulations.
link |
You found what you like.
link |
Here's good news, there's 1500 other ones.
link |
Go listen to the other episodes
link |
where I don't talk about cars.
link |
You don't have to listen.
link |
And it's not like your brand, you just are who you are
link |
and that's what you do.
link |
But it's like, it's authentically what I'm interested in.
link |
All the podcasts, whether I'm talking to David Fravor
link |
about his experience with UFOs,
link |
whether I'm talking to David Sinclair about life extension,
link |
whether I'm talking to you about artificial intelligence
link |
or what, it's because I want to talk to these people.
link |
And that resonates.
link |
I like when people are into shit.
link |
I've talked about this before,
link |
things that I have no interest in making furniture,
link |
but I like this PBS show where this guy
link |
makes furniture by hand.
link |
I love watching it.
link |
Because he's so into it.
link |
He's sanding this and polishing that.
link |
I'm not going to do that.
link |
I don't give a fuck about furniture.
link |
Furniture for me is function, like this desk.
link |
Function works, but I love when people are into it.
link |
I'm happy that someone can make it and they do a great job,
link |
but I'm not interested in the task
link |
or even the finished product
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as much as I'm interested in someone's passion
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The passion that they've put into this, that shines through.
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I sometimes ask this just for to, what is it?
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To challenge, to make people roll their eyes,
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to make legitimate scientists roll their eyes.
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Ask, what is the meaning of life, according to Joe Rogan?
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I do not think there is a meaning.
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I think there's many, many meanings of life.
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I think there's a way to navigate life that's enjoyable.
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I think it requires many things.
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It requires, first of all, it requires love.
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You have to have loved ones.
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You have to have family.
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You have to have friends.
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You have to have people that care about you
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and you have to care about them.
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I think that is primary.
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Then it also requires interests.
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There has to be things that stimulate you.
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Now, it could be just a subsistence lifestyle.
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There's many people that believe and practice
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this lifestyle of just living off the land
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and hunting and fishing and living in the woods
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and they seem incredibly happy.
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And there's something to be said for that.
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That is an interest, right?
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There's something and there's a direct connection
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between their actions and their sustenance.
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They get their food that way.
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They're connected to nature
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and it's very satisfying for them.
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If you don't have that, I think you need something
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that is interesting to you,
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something that you're passionate about.
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And there's far too many people that get sucked
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into living a life where you're just doing a job,
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you're just showing up and putting in your time
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and then going home, but you don't have a passion
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for what you're doing.
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And I think that's the recipe for a boring
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and very unfulfilling life.
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You mentioned love, if we could just backtrack.
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What, we talked about the demons
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and the violence in there somewhere.
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What's the role of love in this, in your own life?
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It's very important, man.
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And that's one of the reasons why I'm so,
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I'm so interested in helping people.
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I'm very interested in people feeling good.
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I like them to feel good.
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I want to help them.
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I like doing things that make them feel like,
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oh, you care about me, like, yeah, I care about you.
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Like, I want people to feel good.
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I want my family to feel good.
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I want my friends to feel good.
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I want guests to feel good about the podcast experience.
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You know, I am, I'm a big believer in as much as I can
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to spread positive energy and joy and happiness
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and relay all the good advice that I've ever gotten.
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All the things that I've learned
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and if they can benefit people,
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then I find that those things benefit people
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that actually improve the quality of their life
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or improve their success or improve their relationships.
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I'm very happy to do that.
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That means a lot to me.
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The way we interact with each other is so important.
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It's one of the reasons why, like,
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if someone gets canceled or you get publicly shamed,
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it's so devastating because there's all these people
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that are negative, all this negative energy coming your way
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As much as I like to pretend that you're immune
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to that kind of stuff
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and some people do like to pretend that, you feel it.
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There's a tangible force when people are upset at you.
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And that's the same with loved ones or family
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or anytime someone's upset at you,
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whether it's a giant group of people
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or there's a small amount of people.
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That has an impact on you and your psyche
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and your physical being.
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So the more you can spread love
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and the more love comes back to you,
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you also create this butterfly effect, right?
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Where other people start recognizing like,
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oh, you know, when he is nice to me, I feel better
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and then I'm gonna be nicer to people.
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And when I'm nicer to people, they feel better
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and I feel better and it spreads outward.
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And that's one thing that I've done through this podcast,
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I think, is I've imparted my personal philosophy
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in kindness and generosity to other people.
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Yeah, I mean, to correct you, you didn't do it.
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The ideas that are breeding themselves through your brain
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Yes, the ideas that are alive in the air
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that made their way into my head.
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Love is a more efficient mechanism of spreading ideas.
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Yes, probably, man.
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So as far as like the meaning of life,
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that's a bit, without that, you have nothing.
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You know, one of the biggest failures in life
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is to be extremely successful financially,
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but everybody hates you.
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Everybody hates you and you're just miserable
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and alone and angry and depressed and sad.
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You know, when you hear about rich, famous people
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that commit suicide, like, wow, you missed the mark.
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You got some parts right,
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but you put too many eggs in one basket.
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You put too many eggs in the financial basket
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or the success basket or the accomplishment basket
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and not enough in the friendship and love basket.
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And there's a balance to that.
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And when I talked about the violence and all that stuff,
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like that to me is me understanding, recognizing that
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is me trying to achieve that balance.
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It's to like go kill those demons
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so that this boat is level, you know,
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because if it's not, then the boat is like this
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and then everything's all fucked up.
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And every time we hit a wave, things fall apart.
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Balance that boat out, figure it out, like know who you are.
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Some people don't have that problem at all.
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Some people, they could just go for walks
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and they're cool as a cucumber.
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I need more, you know, I need kettlebells.
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I need a heavy bag.
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I need the Echo bike, you know, the Air Assault bike.
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I need some hardcore shit.
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And if I don't get that, I don't feel good.
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So I figured that out too.
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And that makes me a nicer person.
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That makes my interactions nicer.
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It changes the quality of my friendships
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and my relationships with people.
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I think we mentioned Neuralink.
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I can certainly guarantee that this is one of the memories
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I'll be replaying 20, 30 years from now
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once we get the feature ready.
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Joe, it's a huge honor to talk to you.
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I hope. It's an honor
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to talk to you too, man.
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Keep doing podcasts. I'm glad you came down here for this.
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The first week of me doing this here
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and it's very cool to have you always.
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I hope you make Texas cool again
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and do your podcast another 10, 11, whatever,
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however many years you're still on this earth.
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All right, thank you, brother.
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I appreciate you, man.
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Thanks for listening to this conversation with Joe Rogan
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and thank you to our sponsors,
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Neuro, Eight Sleep and Dollar Shave Club.
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Check them out in the description to get a discount
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and to support this podcast.
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If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube,
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review it with Five Stars and Apple Podcast,
link |
follow on Spotify, support on Patreon
link |
or connect with me on Twitter, Alex Friedman.
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And now let me leave you with some words of wisdom
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from Joe Rogan, the universe rewards,
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calculated risk and passion.
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Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.