Joe Rogan - Fame is an Empty Pursuit

Kids in LA, here being famous doesn't seem like a viable option. In LA it seemed like the most viable option, like the most primary option. Oh you mean like there's a... There's a community of people that are focused around the Kardashians and the athletes and the musicians and the this and the that and their whole ideas. You know this obviously sounds hypocritical, it's coming from someone who happens to be famous, but I think that it's an empty pursuit. You know, you can get famous doing a thing that you love or you can try to be famous and they're two very different things. And I think there's been many times in my life where I was trying to get famous because it seemed like it was impossible. Like when I was young and first getting on television, first doing comedy, because it just seemed like impossible. Like how does someone get famous? How does it... I could see other people famous, like how are they famous? This is crazy, it seemed nuts. But be careful what you wish for. You think fame changed you? Like are you able to like be cognizant of ways in which the fact that this podcast is the biggest podcast in the world and just all of that, how that's changing your mind? I mean, I think about that with power, that you might not be cognizant of the way that power is changing you. That's why I find Putin fascinating. So what... Like do you look in the mirror and see like you're not the man you used to be in some dimension? Like this is a different human because you're so fucking famous. Believe it or not, I think about that very little. And I think that's one of the keys to my success. I think so. I see that. Legitimately. I don't think... I think just interacting with you offline in general, I don't think you're... It doesn't look like you acknowledge to yourself that you're famous. Like you don't... You're not living with that truth. You're not like lingering it. You're still pursuing the things that make you happy. I tend to believe that you can do the same with power. Like I tend to believe a president could do that same kind of thing. That's what we would hope. You would hope that some president gets to a position of power not because they crave it, but because they have solutions to problems and they genuinely think that they can help the world. I'm not saying that I'm not equating my... Like I'm not favorably comparing myself to a president or something like that, but I think I got a slow drip of fame. And that's one of the things that helped me. You know, I started... I got on television for the first time in like the early 90s with doing stand-up comedy. And then it led to a sitcom. It led to Fear Factor and the UFC and all these different things. And then ultimately it accidentally led to the biggest thing that I ever did, which was this. Is this the biggest thing you ever did? This podcast? Oh, by far. Yeah. By magnitudes. Yeah. Massive giant numbers of magnitudes different than anything I've ever done. And if you're not a fan of Spotify, you can listen to the JRE in the background while using other apps and can download episodes to save on data costs all for free. Spotify is absolutely free. You don't have to have a premium account to watch new JRE episodes. You just need to search for the JRE on your Spotify app. Go to Spotify now to get this full episode of the Joe Rogan Experience.