Joe Rogan is a comedian, UFC commentator, and host of the Joe Rogan Experience. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
- Theragun: https://therabody.com/lex
- Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/lex and use code LEX to get 1 month of fish oil
- InsideTracker: https://insidetracker.com/lex to get 20% off
- Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com/lex and use code LEX to get special savings
- ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/lexpod and use code LexPod to get 3 months free

EPISODE LINKS:
Joe's Instagram: https://instagram.com/joerogan
Joe's Twitter: https://twitter.com/joerogan
JRE (Spotify): https://open.spotify.com/show/4rOoJ6Egrf8K2IrywzwOMk
JRE (YouTube): https://youtube.com/c/joerogan

PODCAST INFO:
Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8
RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/
Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4
Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41

OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
1:02 - Discipline
5:05 - Controversy
25:22 - UFOs and aliens
35:33 - Intelligence agencies
40:57 - Trust
46:20 - Greatest comedians
1:04:15 - Childhood
1:11:45 - Advice for young people
1:22:21 - Relationships
1:26:59 - Putin, Ukraine, and Russia

SOCIAL:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman
- Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman
- Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/lexfridman
- Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman

The following is a conversation with Joe Rogan, his second time on this podcast.

He has inspired me for many years with his conversations to be a better and kinder person and has now been doing so as a friend.

There's no 1 I would rather talk to on this 300th episode of this podcast on the 4th of July, both the anniversary of this country's declaration of independence and the anniversary of my immigrating here to the United States.

A silly kid who couldn't speak English and could never imagine that he would be so damn lucky as to live the life I've lived and to feel the love I've felt from the amazing people along the way.

To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.

Charles Bukowski said something in a poem called Style about art.

He defined art saying, "'Style is the answer to everything, "'a fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing.

"'To do a dull thing with style is preferable "'to doing a dangerous thing without it.

To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art.

He said bullfighting can be art, boxing can be art, loving can be art.

Yeah, I think I call the way people live life art.

Like I wrote a forward to my friend Cameron Haynes' book and which is right now the number 1 selling audio book in the world.

And 1 of the things that I said was that he practices an art that very few people appreciate, and it's the art of the maximized life, in that the discipline that he displays in his life and through his practices and all the things that he does, it's so difficult to live the way he lives.

That for someone like me who understands it and knows what he's doing and appreciates it and appreciates how insanely difficult it is to have a full-time job and run ultra marathons, get up at 04:00 in the morning, run a full marathon before work.

Like that's the kind of shit that he does when he's training for these 240 mile runs, at the same time being like a father, a husband, having this full-time job, also being the best bow hunter on earth, lifting weights, it's like, how does a person do this?

Yeah, I think it is, because it's beautiful for me to see.

When I see someone who's really, truly disciplined, who like a David Goggin, someone who just like truly maximizes the grind, I feel like there's an art to that.

Like there's people that are really kind and really sweet and when I'm around them, it's beautiful.

They still, they got, you know, the world can throw a bunch of shit at you, but through all that.

You know, like, some people are just great at it.

And it's a thing that you learn how to do.

And it's pleasing for other people to see.

Well, I think Bukowski also said, and I'm just a Bukowski quote generator today.

He's a dark and troubled and fascinating and a weird person, like Hunter S.

He said, what matters most is how you walk through the fire, I think.

So there's a bit of the Ken Haynes in that too, David Goggins in that too.

I mean, you can walk through the fire complaining along the way, or you can walk through the fire and create an example for everyone else so that the trials and tribulations of their own life seem trivial because they're comparing themselves to the way you handle things, or the way you handle things with grace and dignity and discipline can show other people that they can handle their own life this way.

And there's beauty in that, there really is.

And there's so much inspiration to be gathered from other people if you're a charitable person, if you're charitable and compassionate and you can look at people, even people that I don't like, I try to look at the best aspects of how they live their life and recognize those aspects, admire them, give them credit for it.

There's something that we can all get out of watching the way other people live their lives.

So I got a chance to see you walk through the fire a little bit privately and publicly this year in January.

So there's like generic conversations about sort of cancel culture and all those kinds of things.

But as a human being, this to me is fascinating.

Sort of there's the N-word highlight video, there's the criticism of the different guests, whatever the side is on the COVID pandemic, and you, I mean, there's a mass amount of attack on you.

Outside of being a public persona, outside of being a comedian, podcaster, you're also a human being.

How did you sort of walk through that fire?

What's your, as Andrew Huberman would say, what was your protocol?

I took, it was probably less than a gram every day.

And I did a lot of really hard working out, but also, I mean, there's a great benefit to going through anything difficult.

And if you're aware, like in advance and during, like anything that's gonna happen that's very difficult and troubling.

The great benefit is it gives you an opportunity to grow, gives you an opportunity to express yourself under pressure, to show your character, to show who you truly are.

And it gives you an opportunity to see how you handle a very difficult situation.

It also was fascinating as a person that's involved in media, right?

Because what we're doing right now is media, even though you know, it seems like podcasts seem like we're just having a conversation, right?

And in that sense, it's kind of the purest form of media.

Because what you're doing is you're doing it without any fanfare, you're doing it without any, there's no executives looming over your head or network or big meetings about ratings or any of that stuff, but it is media.

But what I got to see is the wiring under the machine of how the rest of media would try to take me out.

And, you know, like when CNN would just be playing things over and over and back and forth.

What was also wild to watch was people's responses because I gained 2 million subscribers during that time.

It had never been bigger than it had been like at the end of all of it.

And you know, ultimately, when, if you've fucked up in the past or made mistakes or done something wrong, that gives you an opportunity to discuss those things and to say, to apologize if you feel the need to apologize, and also to just address it.

And so people under that kind of pressure, they get, it's an opportunity for them to understand how you think about things, honestly, how you actually honestly think about things.

And there's no more honesty that you get out of a person than when that person is under extreme duress.

You know, So I think in that sense, I mean, it's horrible to say that it's a benefit, that it's a good thing that it happened But it was a benefit.

I've gotten the chance to experience small Small attacks here and there.

Ones that get to the core of things like even just talking to about Russia and Ukraine, to Stephen Coghan or Oliver Stone, looking at different perspectives, you gain a relative, for me, feeling like a sizable number of people who really don't like you.

And say things about you that may be cut deep for a reason I don't understand why.

Well, it's also because you can't defend yourself because they're saying it and you're not there and you don't have any opportunity for a rebuttal.

And if you do have a rebuttal, you're doing it publicly and you're opening it up to the whole world to chime in.

And there's a general tendency that people have towards negativity when they're interacting with strangers online, especially about controversial subjects.

And even if it's only 10% of the people, it's 1 out of 10.

That's a lot of negativity when you're dealing with thousands and thousands of tweets.

Yeah, and I think, maybe I'm just a very self-critical person, but I hear their words and I probably, somewhere deep inside, see the truth in the criticism, in some aspect of the criticism, and that's why it hurts.

You know, but when you're reading it, it's so, it's boiled down to this 1 thing, as if that 1 thing defines you totally.

Like if you've made a mistake, if you've said something that you shouldn't have said, or if you said something and, you know, maybe you should have considered it more carefully, given the gravity of the situation, you know, That's just a part of being a person.

And it's also part of being a person where you're communicating with things publicly, in real time, thinking out loud, which is what we do.

You know, it's complex and most people don't do it.

And you're gonna have these, you're gonna have genuine hot takes where people just see what you said and go, why did he say that?

You know, he doesn't know anything about, he doesn't live in Ukraine.

He doesn't, you know, it's like, there's people that are gonna have takes on that, in that way.

And then there's also gonna be these disingenuous people who just use any kind of controversial topic or subject as an opportunity for them to get clicks or views.

But the number of those people can be quite large.

And so going back to do you think it can destroy a person?

Because I kind of worry about this, and you're in many ways, but in this way an inspiration, that it didn't seem to have destroyed you.

I kept doing shows, I kept doing standup, I ignored everything.

If your wife is aware of it, is there like a rule, don't pretend it's not happening?

I don't ever let her like read negative articles to me.

You know, I don't want them, I don't care.

You take a person's opinion, you write it down, doesn't give it any more relevance.

That person could have had that opinion in silence, they could have had it with some friends at dinner, they don't like me, whatever.

I don't wanna read it, I don't wanna absorb it, I don't even know them, especially if I'm not there.

And especially if it's some biased and it's not an objective opinion of me.

It's this, you know, they have a narrative and they want to stick to that narrative and they wanna write an article and they piece it all together and make you look like a piece of shit.

You're not supposed to be taking in the opinion of the world.

You're supposed to be taking in the opinion of small groups of people that you encounter so that you get an understanding of how you make them feel.

And then maybe you say to yourself, maybe I come across too rude, or maybe I come across too insensitive, or maybe I could do better in this way or that way.

That's how we sort of shape our personalities, and it's how we develop our social skills.

But when the people don't know you, and they have this distorted narrative of you, and there's fucking millions of people, there's so many people, You can't be sane.

I mean millions of people that are like communicating about something.

Like during the height of the attempt to cancel me or whatever that is.

I don't know how many people were involved in that.

People take this kind of stuff seriously, but the problem is the false narratives take hold, and then you have meetings, you have groups, it builds on top of each other, and there's this outrage, and then it reaches you at some point, and it can just have these destructive effects.

It can, but it also sometimes doesn't, and in my case it didn't.

I don't think the mushrooms by themselves would have worked.

But that's the thing that I use for everything is the brutal exercise.

And because of that, everything else is easier.

I create my own bullshit, and my own bullshit is so much harder.

And it's not just that, it's also sauna and cold plunge and these torture sessions.

They, in enduring those, when you endure those, it makes enduring other things much easier.

And it's also an understanding of what's happening.

You have to understand, like, what the hot take, you know, YouTube, social media, podcast, ecosphere is doing.

Like if they're talking about, you know, Lex Friedman said this and we have to comment on that and you know, Lex gets canceled in all capital letters on a YouTube clip And if you watch that, you're fucking crazy.

And you know generally if you've made a mistake, and you know generally if people

You posted this awesome video on your Instagram of a woman who was being interviewed in late 1920s maybe.

So she's lived through the Civil War, through World War I.

She was at the time living through the early days of the Great Depression.

So I was just looking back, you know, what have we as a human civilization in recent times survived, especially in the United States?

You're talking about the 2 world wars in the 20th century, the Great Depression, the Spanish flu, the pandemic, at the beginning of the 20th century.

9-11, if you think of what are the traumatic events that shook our world, it's 9-11, It made us rethink our place in the world.

the bigger ones, because it also accelerated and exacerbated our anxiety, which people have a certain level of anxiety already, especially sedentary people.

They have a very high level of anxiety already, because I don't think they're giving their body what it needs.

I don't think they're, you know, your body has certain requirements in terms of movement, And when you deny your body those requirements, I think there's like a general level of anxiety that exists in almost everyone.

And then you have people, obviously, that have mental health issues.

Losing loved ones to the pandemic exacerbated anxiety.

And then there was the division, the different schools of thought, the people that were never going to get vaccinated no matter what.

People that thought there was microchips in there, people that thought that, you know, Fauci's the demon.

And there was a lot, and there's also like political leanings.

The right-wing people tended to not want to be vaccinated, Whereas the left-wing people, for whatever reason, all of a sudden are trusting pharmaceutical companies, like, explicitly.

As it gets analyzed and we break it down.

It's gonna be 1 of the weirder moments for shaping human culture.

And unfortunately for throwing gasoline on this already burning fire of, of conflict between the various factions of thought in this country.

It's already a weird time, you know, post-Trump.

Like the Trump era is also going to be 1 of the weirder times when people look back historically about the division in this country.

He's such a polarizing figure that so many people felt like they could abandon their own ethics and morals and principles just to attack him and anybody who supports him because he is an existential threat to democracy itself.

But don't you think it's not a cause but maybe like a symptom?

Like it's gonna get, you said it got real weird, maybe it's gonna get weirder.

You know, I mean, Biden shakes hands with people that aren't even there when he gets off stage.

You see him on Jimmy Kimmel the other day?

I mean, if he was anyone else, if he was a Republican, if that was Donald Trump doing that, every fucking talk show would be screaming for him to be off the air.

And by the way, I'm not a Trump supporter in any way, shape, or form.

I've had the opportunity to have him on my show more than once.

If I have them on, the night is still young?

I think ultimately, I mean, you've had a lot of people that I think you may otherwise be skeptical, would I have a good conversation?

Which I think is your metric, you don't care about politics, So can I have a good conversation?

And I think you had people like Kanye on, for example, and you had a great conversation with him.

But Kanye doing well or not doing well doesn't change the course of our country.

Yeah, but you don't, do you really bear the responsibility of the course of our country based on a conversation?

I think you can revitalize and rehabilitate someone's image in a way that is pretty shocking.

Look at the way people look at Alex Jones now, because Alex Jones has been on my podcast a

The people that have watched those podcasts think he's hilarious, and they think that he definitely fucked up with that whole Sandy Hook thing, but he's right more than he's wrong, and he's not an evil guy.

He's just a guy who's had some psychotic breaks in his life, he's had some genuine mental health issues that he's addressed, he's had some serious bouts of alcoholism, some serious bouts of substance abuse, and they've contributed to some very poor thinking.

But if you know the guy, if you get to know him, like I have, I've known him for more than 20 years.

And if you know him on podcasts, you realize like, he is genuinely trying to unearth some things that are genuinely disturbing for most people.

Like, this is a guy that was telling me about Epstein's island fucking decade ago, at least.

You're telling me there's a place where they bring elites to compromise them with underage girls and they film them.

Like no, President Clinton's been there, everyone's been there.

And not only is it true, but people keep getting fucking murdered for it.

Did you see that latest Clinton advisor that got murdered about it?

Yeah, hung with an extension cord, shot himself in the chest 30 miles from his house, and they're calling it a suicide.

And now even Elon Musk is asking, where's the clientele list?

We should probably see who's been to that island.

Yeah, We should probably see who's been to that island.

Yeah, we should probably see who's been to that island.

And there's probably more of those kind of things out there that haven't been exposed.

Yeah, but sort of to push back, and you had those conversations with Alex Jones.

Wouldn't you be able to have the same kind of conversation with Donald Trump?

You revealed that Alex Jones is a human being.

He's obviously chaotic all over the place, but there's some wisdom to the perspective he takes on the world, even though he is often full of shit, he is able to predict certain things that very few people are willing to bring up.

Fucked up person, egomaniac, whatever personality things you can talk about, isn't it worthwhile to lay it out?

Like who's going to, if you listen to interviews of Trump, who has the balls to call him out on his bullshit?

No, calling out somebody on their bullshit is easy when you're just being adversarial, but as a person who is genuinely, empathetically trying to understand, I think you're really good at that.

Oh if he would genuinely be there You know I'm saying like I think he would be putting on a performance and that's you

think you can break through that in like 30 Minutes

I'd need more time than that And he doesn't do any drugs.

You can get Alex high, get him drunk, and he'll start talking about interdimensional child molesters.

Maybe you have somebody else on as well to introduce chaos, like Alex.

I would have to, that would be a focused thing.

I would have to like really take time with Trump.

But also I'm not well versed enough politically to know all of the corruption that's been alleged and to understand what the whole Russiagate stuff, what's real, like, how much of it, it's clear that there is more than 1 organization that's involved in communicating with Russia before the 2016 elections.

See all Lex Fridman transcripts on Youtube

Joe Rogan: Comedy, Controversy, Aliens, UFOs, Putin, CIA, and Freedom | Lex Fridman Podcast #300