Joe Rogan: Conversation is a Lost Art

It's hard because you don't get that many conversations with people where you disagree with them and it's not confrontational. Usually they're confrontational or you're confrontational. So it always starts off on the bad foot. I've learned how to do it from doing this podcast. And one of the most surprising things about doing this podcast is I learned how to talk to people better. I didn't think that was a thing. I thought I just was talking to people. But then I realized somewhere along the way, not only are people listening, but sometimes I'm annoying. Like, how do I do this where I'm less annoying? And in learning how to do things that are less annoying, I've become a more compassionate conversationalist. I understand how to talk to people better. And I've gotten, I apply it to my whole life now. I've gotten better at it. And I've seen people who are bad at it. It's so frustrating. Like I have some really smart friends and I talk to them and they just fucking interrupt each other and they interrupt you and they don't let anybody talk. They're not listening. They're just waiting for their time to talk. And it's so strange. They're not able to ever consider other people's opinions. They think that everyone but them is wrong. And it's basically like, you know how it is when you see a YouTube video where people have no idea how to fight and you see them fight? You know that thing? That is so crazy. To this day, I'm like, I've been doing martial arts my whole life. I don't want to fight anybody. But I see people fighting. They have no idea how to fight. I'm like, I imagine myself, if I was in a street fight with this guy, I'm like, this is, I would be like, why are you doing this, man? This is so crazy. You don't know what you're doing. Hey, hey, you're crazy. You're going to get killed. You're lucky I'm nice. But that's the same way with conversation. There's a lot of people out there having conversations, have no idea how to talk. They don't, they're not even really listening to you. They're just so, and like, why are you doing that? Why are you arguing? You're in a conversation. You don't even know how to have one. You're not listening. You're just talking. You're just using someone like a wall that you're throwing a fucking tennis ball off of. It's bizarre. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you had a statement on this, and I think it was your last special, where it was like, you have two idiots in a room. It's the more confident one that they listen to. And it's that concept of, just say more words and have more opinions, and you don't have to think, just be loud and make a lot of noise. It's a game. They're trying to checkmate you. Instead of having a communication, a conversation, they're trying to socially dominate you. And this, look, I used to do it, for sure. I think it's a learned thing. People do it to you, and you go, man, I gotta fucking kick my ass in that conversation. I'm gonna get better at kicking people's ass. And then you get better at sort of bulldogging people or talking over them or talking loud or having these sentences that maybe you could pull out of your ass every now and then to shut people down. It sounds good, and it becomes a sport instead of what it really should be, which is sharing ideas and communicating with people. If you're really into the sport of just debating people and shutting people down and insulting people, okay, good for you. But people don't like listening to that that much. But people like listening to, from my experience, is someone actually talking to someone, someone actually expressing their thoughts, and then the other person considering their thoughts and either agreeing or disagreeing. But people are so happy when you could do that without real conflict. I've had some people on that just five years ago, I would have just said, you fucking moron. I would have screamed at them. What are you talking about? You're an idiot. You can go fuck yourself. You can jump off a bridge. But instead of doing that, I'd be like, okay, why do you think that? And tell me what about this? Here's what I think. Let me tell you what I think. You tell me what you think. And this is why I think it's strong. But to be able to do that in a non-snarky way, like, oh yeah, you think that? Tell me more. But yeah, like- That's how you get the best out of people, though. That's how you understand who they really are. Yeah, and it's so valuable. So valuable. For me, it's just for me. I know it's valuable for people that are listening, but just for me as a human, for my own education, it's been everything. Yeah. Everything. I've learned more from talking to people on this podcast, both from talking to scholars and scientists and really intelligent people and morons. I've learned a lot from talking to morons, just the awkwardness and the way they process thoughts and the way they view the world and the way they've chosen to communicate. You learn from that. It's like you're saying sparring with someone has terrible habits. You go, oh, look at this guy. What the fuck are you doing, man? But you learn. You can learn from people. Yeah. Well, I think that's something that really separates you from a lot of people. I mean, yeah, there's shows where people are very opinionated and loud and people like that and that kind of thing. But your ability to communicate and to bring out conversation, regardless of what the subject matter is, makes it very intriguing. You can learn a lot, regardless of who the guest is. You learn so much from these people because of the way you're able to communicate with them, the way you're able to bring out conversation and get in depth with all of these subjects. Well, I'm genuinely curious about most things and I'm genuinely curious about the way I think. I'm like, why do I think that way? So if someone thinks different than me, I'm genuinely curious. Why do you think? There's an instinct to go, nah, you're fucking wrong. I'm right. But I just go, oh, I know what that is. That's a trick. Don't do that. That's dumb. Don't think that way. Just try to find out. This is not a game. It's not a contest. Find out why this person thinks this way. And it's better for everybody. But it's just a lost talent. A lot of people don't. And I didn't even know it was a thing until I started doing podcasts. It just took me a while. So like anything else, for me at least, as I'm doing it, I'm trying to get better at it and I realized, oh, I used to not be as good. Like I can't, I never listened to my podcast, but if I did listen to like the old ones from the beginning, I probably like, fucking terrible. Jesus Christ. Plus most of them, I was high out of my fucking mind. I don't know half what I was talking about while I was saying it. I was ruining conversations left and right. But these conversations for me are like, it's like going to school. It's like every day, I'm going to school about humans, you know, going to school about whatever the subject they're talking to me about, but also going to school about how, you know, the more people you talk to, especially like this, no cell phones, we're wearing headphones. And one of the reasons why I like headphones is because your voice is in my ear. You're not over there. You're right here, man. We're locked in. And this is exactly the same way that other people are going to hear it, which is a very unusual way to hear a conversation. You don't think about it that way, but most of the time when you hear a conversation, your voice is louder because it's closer and they're over there. Yeah. And you're talking to each other and, you know, maybe you check your phone or maybe you're distracted by other noises, but when you're wearing headphones, you don't hear anything else. So you're locked in. And when else would you and I, and we're friends, I've known you for years, when will we be able to sit down like this for hours just across from each other, staring at each other's eyes just talking? Yeah. Yeah. I never thought about that with the headphones. It's big. Yeah. That's interesting. Because conversations are improvisational, right? You have a dance partner. You don't want to step on each other's toes, but you do it occasionally. It's just, so you get better at it. And for more than two people, it's mandatory. Like when you have three or four people on a podcast, you cannot do it without headphones or it's just talking over each other. Like I learned that doing those fight companions. Oh yeah. Because everyone's drunk and then they have the headphones on. It sort of at least calms some of the over talk. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. It's a journey, man. Like everything else.