 Is there advice, both small and big, that you have for somebody like me? The advice is to keep doing what feels right to you and do what you're doing. Obviously, it's resonating with people if you're getting that big of an audience. And I've listened to your podcast, you're very good at it. So just keep doing it the way you're doing it. Don't let anybody else get involved. What about you've connected, I think you met Jamie at the comedy store. I met him at the ice house. Well, I think I met him at the comedy store, but then we talked at the ice house. You'd have to ask him. Yeah, did you think deeply about, because you basically have nobody on your team. And so it almost feels like a marriage. Were you selective about, like, to somebody to bring into your little circle? Well, Jamie's exceptional. He is, he's special. I mean, he might have grown. I don't remember how he was in the early days, maybe you could say. He's definitely better at it, but right away, he's exceptional. He's got very little ego. Yes. He's not a guy who needs a lot of attention. He's not a guy who overestimates anything, like in terms of negative or positive. Like his interpretation of whether it's good things that happened to the show or bad things that happened to the show, he just takes it all like flat. He's chill. He's just cool as fuck. And he's so smart and he's so good as an audio engineer and as a podcast producer. He's the best. But he's basically one of the only people on this whole team. So how do you find, I mean, when you let people in? I mean, I'm sure other people wanted to get involved. Like, why don't you have a co-host? Like, you basically kind of, well. Well, here's the problem with a co-host. Like when you and I are talking, when we're talking, I'm tuned in to you and I'm waiting to hear what you're saying and I'm listening and I'm interpreting it. And then I'm calculating whether or not I have anything to say, whether it'll let you keep talking, whether I maybe have a question that lets you expand further or whether I have a disagreement or like there's a dance that's going on. Now, when there's another person there chiming in too, it fucks the dance up. It's like dancing, like, have you doing a dance with someone, you know? Like if you're slow dancing with someone. And then a third person's there stepping on everybody's feet. Sometimes it's fun. Sometimes having a third person is fun. Comedy podcast, sometimes it's fun. Debate, kind of structure. Yeah, debate structures. But even then, it gets difficult because people talk over each other. And also, I find that without headphones, it's way easier to talk over each other. It makes mistakes. You don't hear it the same way. When you have headphones, I hear what you hear. It's all one sound. And the audience hears exactly or rather, I hear exactly what the audience hears. Whether it's over here, my voice is louder than yours because you're over there. And if I don't have headphones on, it's not all together. At that point, one of the interesting things about your show is you almost never have done and you just generally don't do remote calls, but you don't go to another person's location. You have only done a few for small handful. And just like with Sapolsky, he should be, he should do this. But I actually, we went back and forth on email. I told him he needs to get his ass back in the studio. He's working on a book. I was a fan of his a long time ago because I became obsessed with Toxoplasmosis. And I've reached out to him a long time ago before he was willing to do it. But then I caught him in downtown LA. He was there for something else and I just greedily snatched up an hour of his time. Well, he doesn't get, I think, some of those folks don't get how much magic can happen in this podcast studio, bigger than anything they've ever done in terms of their work. I'm not talking about reach, but in terms of the discovery of new ideas, there's something magical about conversation. Somebody as brilliant as him, if he gives himself over to the conversation for multiple hours at a time, that's another place where you've been an inspiration. I'm getting more and more confidence of telling people, like in Elon Musk, that a lot of CEOs are like, well, he has 30 minutes on his schedule. I'm like, no, three hours. So and then they're like, so some say, no. And then they come back. There's people have started coming back to like, okay, we're starting to get it. They start to get it. And you're a rare beacon of hope in that sense that there's some value in long form. They think that nobody wants to listen for 30, for more than 30 minutes. They think like, I have nothing to say. But the reality is, if you just give yourself over to like the three hours, just let it go, three hours, four hours, whatever it is. There's so much to discover about what you didn't even know you think. Yeah, you have to be confident that you could do it. And in the beginning, I just did it because that's what I wanted to do. And no one was listening. So I've always been a curious person. So I've always been interested in listening to how people think about things and how, and talking to people about their mindset and just expanding on my own ideas, just talking shit. So we would have these podcasts and they would go on forever. And my friend Ari, I never let him die, never let this die down, never let him forget this. He was always like, you have to edit your podcast. I'm telling you right now, you're fucking up. I go, why? He's like, because people are not going to listen to it. I go, they don't have to. Yeah. I go, you listen to part of it. He goes, just do it. I'm telling you, trust me, cut it down to like 45 minutes. That's all you need. And I'm like, no, no, I don't think you're right. I go, I like listening to long form things. No one has that kind of time. I go, okay, I'm just going to keep doing it this way. So stick to your gut. No, he doesn't. He listened to his, his are like two and a half hours long now. That's great. You won. But you wouldn't like say, I mentioned to you just before, this is going to happen. It's actually made a lot of progress towards it. I'm going to talk to Putin. But you wouldn't travel to Putin if you want to talk to you. Putin is a dangerous character. He's not. He's not. You're talking to, you've seen the thing with Jerry Kraft, where he stole his Superbowl ring. Yeah. Yeah, those, I think that was a little bit of misunderstanding. Oh really? I think it's a little bit, he just decided he's going to steal that Superbowl ring. Kind of. I think it was kind of, he thought, can I see your ring? He shows him his ring and then he puts it on and says, I can murder somebody with this ring. So he, and then he walks off with it. It's possible he did it. As a, he's a big believer in displays of power. Yeah. So like it's possible he did that. But I think he sees himself as like a tool with which to demonstrate that Russia still belongs on the stage of the big players. And so he, a lot of actions are selected through that lens. But in terms of a human being, outside of any of the evils that he may or may not have done, he is a really thoughtful, intelligent, fun human being, like the wit. And the depth from the JRE perspective is really interesting. I'm like his manager now selling the, he's a judo guy. Trying to get trouble. He's really good at judo. I have seen him practice judo. He's a legit black belt. And not only that, he loves it. Not just skill-wise, but to talk about it, to reason about it, to think about it, to MMA as well. So yeah, it'd be a good conversation. But you wouldn't travel to him. Well, that's, hold to your principles. So that's the core of the advice, just hold to whatever. I would rather, here's the thing. There's not a person that I have to have on the show. Right. And I'm happy to talk to anybody. I'm just as happy to talk to you as I am to talk to Trump, as I am probably more happy to talk to you, as I am to talk to Mike Tyson, as I am to talk to Joey Diaz. I like talking to people. I enjoy doing podcasts. I enjoy talking to a variety of people. And I schedule them based on, I want to like, I try not to get too many right-wing people in a row or too many progressive people in a row. I don't want to get repetitive. I try not to get too many fighters in a row. I try to balance it out. Not too many comedians. Comedians are the one group where I can have three, four in a row, five in a row. Because that's my tribe. Those are my people. It's easy. We can talk about anything. It's a weird dance. The conversations that you're doing on a podcast are a strange dance. And you want to not step on your own feet. And you want to make sure that you do it in a way, do the podcast in a way that's entertaining for people. And conversations are learning how to talk to people. It's a weird skill. It's a weird skill that took a long time for me to get good at. And I didn't know it was a skill until I started doing it. And then I just thought you're just talking. Like, I know how to talk. We just talk to people. And then along the way, I realized like, oh, and then when you talk to people that are bad at it, you realize that it's a skill. Like particularly, one of the things about my people, about comedians is a lot of them tend to want to talk, but don't want to listen. Right. So they're waiting for you to stop talking so they can talk, but they're not necessarily thinking about what you're saying. And they're just waiting for their opportunity, or they talk over you. And I try real hard not to do that. And sometimes I fail, but when I'm at my best, I'm dancing. Yeah, ultimately, the skill conversation is just really listening. Like really, and listening and thinking. Listening and thinking. Genuinely curious and really having a take on what they're saying. And maybe a follow-up question or maybe, it's got to be real. It's got to be authentic. And when it is authentic and it's real, it resonates with people. Like they're listening and they go, oh, like I'm locked in with the way you're thinking. Like you two guys are in a conversation and I'm locked in. When she talks and you listen, I'm listening too. When he says something to her or when she says something to him, there's a thing that happens during conversations where you're there. With me, when I listen to a good podcast, I feel like I'm in the room. I feel like I'm in the room and I'm like the friend that got to sit down and listen. Like, oh, yeah, it's a great conversation. I love conversations. So I love listening to them and I love putting them together. And the fact that this podcast has gotten so fucking big, it's stunning to me. It blows me away. I'd never anticipated it. Never thought for a second that that stupid thing that I used to do in my couch, in my office, was the biggest thing I've ever done in my life by far. Like people used to make fun of it. Like there's a comedy store documentary that's coming out. And one of the parts of the documentary is my friend Tom Segura, when he first started doing my podcast, he would be leaving and he would talk to Red Band. He's like, what the fuck is he doing? Yeah. Like, why is he doing this? Like, who's listening? He's like, oh, some people like it. And he's like, fucking nonsense. Ways to time. And like in the documentary shows, like 2000 views, like one of the early Ustream episodes. It's hilarious. And they don't just like it. Really, they form a friendship with you. It's like, even me, when people come up to me, like the love in their eyes is kind of beautiful. It's weird, right? Yeah. It's like- You're a part of their life. Yeah. And I don't know, it's also heartbreaking because you realize you'll never really get to know them back. Because they clearly are friends with you. Yes, yeah. And it's sad to see a person who's clearly brilliant and interesting and is friends with you, but you don't get a chance to return that love. And I mean- My kids, it took them a while to figure out what's going on. But people would come up to me and they would say something like, hey man, I fucking love you. Thanks man. All right. Hey, brother, nice to meet you. My daughter was like six. She'd be like, do you know him? Yeah. I'm like, no, I don't know him. She's like, how does he know you? Very weird conversation I used to have with young kids when I'd explain, I'd do this thing called the podcast and millions of people listen. So now one of my daughters is 12 and one of her friends is 13 and he's a boy and he goes to school with her and he's obsessed with me. And so she's weirded out and she says to him, I don't even think you like me. I think you're just into my dad, you fucking weirdo. She's going to have that conversation in a few stages in her life. Like that hard conversation with a boyfriend. Yeah, probably. Yeah, that was the thing about men too. This podcast is, my podcast is uniquely masculine. I'm a man and I'm not, I'm also a man that doesn't have to go through some sort of a corporate filter. I'm not going through executive producers who tell me, don't have this guest on, don't talk about that. We looked at focus groups and they don't seem to like when you do this. Like there's none of that. I just, and I just do it. So I have a whole podcast where I just talk about cars and people are like, I don't want to hear you talk about cars. Well, good, congratulations. You found what you like. Here's good news. There's 1,500 other ones. Go listen to the other episodes where I don't talk about cars. You don't have to listen. And it's not like your brand, you just are who you are and that's what you do. It's like, it's authentically what I'm interested in. All the podcasts, whether I'm talking to David Fraver about his experience with UFOs, whether I'm talking to David Sinclair about life extension, whether I'm talking to you about artificial intelligence or what it's because I want to talk to these people. And that resonates. I like when people are into shit. You know, I've talked about this before, like things that I have no interest in making furniture, but I like this PBS show where this guy makes furniture by hand. I love watching it because he's so into it. He's extending this and polishing that. I'm not going to do that. I don't give a fuck about furniture. Furniture for me is function, like this desk. Function works, but I love when people are into it. I'm happy that someone can make it and they do a great job, but I'm not interested in the task or even the finished product as much as I'm interested in someone's passion for something. The passion that they've put into this, that shines through. Last question. I sometimes ask this just for to, what is it? To challenge, to make people roll their eyes, to make legitimate scientists roll their eyes, ask what is the meaning of life according to Joe Rogan? I do not think there is a meaning. I think there's many, many meanings of life. I think there's a way to navigate life that's enjoyable. I think it requires many things. It requires, first of all, requires love. You have to have loved ones, you have to have family, you have to have friends, you have to have people that care about you and you have to care about them. I think that is primary. Then it also requires interests. There has to be things that stimulate you. Now, it could be just a subsistence lifestyle. There's many people that believe and practice this lifestyle of just living off the land and hunting and fishing and living in the woods, and they seem incredibly happy. There's something to be said for that. That is an interest. There's a direct connection between their actions and their sustenance. They get their food that way. They're connected to nature and it's very satisfying for them. If you don't have that, I think you need something that is interesting to you, something that you're passionate about. There's far too many people that get sucked into living a life where you're just doing a job. You're just showing up and putting in your time and then going home, but you don't have a passion for what you're doing. I think that's a recipe for a boring and very unfulfilling life. You mentioned love, if you could just backtrack. We talked about the demons and the violence in there somewhere. What's the role of love in your own life? It's very important, man. That's one of the reasons why I'm so interested in helping people. I'm very interested in people feeling good. I like them to feel good. I want to help them. I like doing things that make them feel like, oh, you care about me. Like, yeah, I care about you. I really do. I want people to feel good. I want my family to feel good. I want my friends to feel good. I want guests to feel good about the podcast experience. I'm a big believer in as much as I can to spread positive energy and joy and happiness. And relay all the good advice that I've ever gotten. All the things that I've learned, and if they can benefit people, then I find that those things benefit people that actually improve the quality of their life or improve their success or improve their relationships. I'm very happy to do that. That means a lot to me. The way we interact with each other is so important. It's one of the reasons why someone gets canceled or you get publicly shamed. It's so devastating because there's all these people negative, all this negative energy coming your way. And you feel it. As much as you like to pretend that you're immune to that kind of stuff, and some people do like to pretend that, you feel it. There's a tangible force when people are upset at you. And that's the same with loved ones or family or anytime someone's upset at you, whether it's a giant group of people or there's a small amount of people. That has an impact on you and your psyche and your physical being. So the more you can spread love and the more love comes back to you, you also create this butterfly effect where other people start recognizing like, oh, you know when he's nice to me, I feel better and then I'm gonna be nicer to people. And when I'm nicer to people, they feel better and I feel better and it spreads outward. And that's one thing that I've done through this podcast, I think, is I've imparted my personal philosophy in kindness and generosity to other people. I mean, to correct you, you didn't do it. The ideas that are breeding themselves through your brain have figured out. Yes, the ideas that are alive in the air that have made their way into my head. Love is a more efficient mechanism of spreading ideas they figured out. Probably, man. Probably. So as far as like the meaning of life, that's a bit, without that, you have nothing. You know, one of the biggest failures in life is to be extremely successful financially, but everybody hates you. Everybody hates you and you're just miserable and alone and angry and depressed and sad. You know, when you hear about rich, famous people that commit suicide, like wow, you missed the mark. You got some parts right, but you put too many eggs in one basket. You put too many eggs in the financial basket or the success basket or the accomplishment basket and not enough in the friendship and love basket. And there's a balance to that. And when I talked about the violence and all that stuff, like that to me is me, understanding, recognizing that is me trying to achieve that balance. It's to like go kill those demons so that this boat is level. You know, because if it's not, then the boat is like this and then everything's all fucked up and every time we hit a wave, things fall apart. Balance that boat out, figure it out, like know who you are. Some people don't have that problem at all. Some people, they could just go for walks and they're cool as a cucumber. I need more. I need kettlebells. I need a heavy bag. I need the echo bike, the aerosol bike. I need some hardcore shit. And if I don't get that, I don't feel good. So I figured that out too. And that makes me a nicer person and that makes my interactions nicer. It changes the quality of my friendships and my relationships with people. I think we mentioned Neuralink. I can certainly guarantee that this is one of the memories I'll be replaying 20, 30 years from now once we get the feature ready. Joe, it's a huge honor to talk to you. It's an honor to talk to you too, man. I'm glad you came down here for this. The first week of me doing this here and it's very cool to have you always. I hope you make Texas cool again and do your podcast another 10, 11, whatever, however many years you're still on this earth. All right, thank you, brother. Appreciate you, man. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Joe Rogan and thank you to our sponsors, Neuro, A Sleep and Dollar Shave Club. Check them out in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it with $5,000 on a podcast, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Freedman. And now let me leave you with some words of wisdom from Joe Rogan. The universe rewards calculated risk and passion. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.