Joe Rogan on Extreme Performance Athletes

What's up Jer? Did you see what Colin O'Brady, who was on the podcast a few moments ago now. Sure. Yeah, he's got a row across to Antarctica. Drake's Passage, I guess is what it's called, in this little teeny rowboat. Oh Jesus. He's crazy. A couple other guys he's going to do it with, but I guess they're going to... He walked across Antarctica. Yeah, of course. It was just a harrowing story. How did it... Really, I can't imagine it not being fraught at every other's footstep. I bet you do that though for however long it takes him. A summer, a rowing, you come out ripped. I bet you develop serious back muscles. Yeah, I would say. Yeah, you know, that is a really positive way to look at it. It's a great workout that you first do. So if you want... If you do stay alive. Do you want bigger back? If you want your back to look beautiful. Okay, the crew must row with me. Well, the crew must row with me. 24 hours a day, rotating around the clock with little to no sleep. What? Yeah, they're livestreaming this whole thing with Discovery. Oh my God. If they die, we're gonna watch it. Bro, look at this. Swells can tower up to 50 feet high. What the fuck, man? Can you imagine it's... It sounds so fucking crazy. Well, imagine it's 2, like, 27 in the morning. Yeah. And everyone's asleep and you're in charge of rowing over 50 foot swells. And how much can you sleep? If everybody has to work 24 hours a day, what do you get, like, an hour sleep a day? Well, you get tons of fake sleep. Because you're tired of rowing. You're in the zone. Look at this fucking boat, too. It's a shitty little boat. Can you imagine being the cameraman? That's the most boring thing ever on that. Did you see that cameraman on the back? Oh, that's ridiculous. He's got a row, too, though. There's no one who's just a cameraman. Six athletes, it says. One boat. No chance. No motor. They're fucked. Yeah. Yeah. No sail. Oh, God. Why do people have to do things like this? No turning back. I love talking to them when they come back. Why do they have to do that? It just seems so ridiculous. Good luck. The impossible row. Follow the expedition. I wonder how you sell that idea to, like, the other rower. They have to be assholes, too. There you go. Bunch of crazy assholes you get together. I was thinking about running 1,000 miles. Well, hey, before you do that, I got a project. Yeah, does it start with, like, hear me out. Just hear me out. Let me finish the pitch. Yeah. Do you have to pre-assess that like that? Yeah. Or do you just gently try to... I think those kind of people find themselves. I don't know what you have to. Yeah, certainly they're near the ore store or whatever the fuck. There are some people out there that just can't push themselves hard enough, you know, no matter what happens. They're like my friend David Goggins. He ran this Moab 240. It's a 240 mile race through the desert. He developed pulmonary edema, which I guess you get at high altitudes when you're exerting yourself. Yeah, that Everest, like... Crazy shit, right? So he goes to the hospital, they treat him. He gets back and finishes the race. So he ran another 80 miles after he ran 180 plus with fucking pulmonary edema, like, what? But does that mean that when you get done, that you're like, good. Phew. Okay. No, he didn't give a fuck. I mean, it's not really an ending. There's no end with that guy. There's no destination at all. There's no finish line. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like break to take a leak, I suppose. The thing is they all know there's other people like them out there. So it's like... Because they're at the same race. Yeah, not even just that. It's just that they're all connected, but from the internet, you know, they're all connected through the circles that they travel in. They're connected through just... But do you think that a driver... Do you think that a drive like that is more an internal one or do you think that the competition of seeing what someone else did is... What kind of factor do you think that... I think they both play a factor. It's other people that are pushing it. They make you realize that it's possible. And then it's other... You also have to have some sort of insane internal furnace. Yeah. Well, they're... I believe when they did some brain testing on that climber fella that did the... Alex Honnold? Yeah. Yeah. That he just didn't trip out as a... It took a lot more to freak him out. Oh, yeah. I'm sure. That his brain waves were like... Yeah. No, I'm cool. Like when you're hanging by one toenail upside down. Dude, even talking about him makes me nervous. I've had him on twice. Those shots? Yeah. Oh my God. I shit in someone else's pants. I get so scared. I'm gonna borrow your pants real quick. Those are great on you. Let me try them on. And then I'm like, here you go. Dude, sometimes it's not even straight up and down. Sometimes it's an angle back. Yeah, like... Yeah. Like 15 degrees back the wrong direction. Like, what? I do just watch that and get vertigo where your balls are sort of like, all right. Look at this. Don't. I can't. Bro, that's way more than 15 degrees. How many degrees is that? If you had a guess. 45. That's like 45 degrees, right? Yeah. That is definitely 45 degrees. And he's fucking thousand feet up in the sky. Oh. But do you have to... My palms are sweaty. Yeah, mine are sweating like crazy. Do you have to... Feel that. Feel that. I couldn't tell if that's yours or mine. Dude, that's crazy. Like instantaneous palm sweat. We need to drink Purell now. Just let our hands on fire. Put our hands in the same bucket of water you use for the scorpion. And ride a motorcycle like I try to stay focused and be very now. Right. In the moment. That's the requirement. Like when you're sort of like, did I leave the iron on? That's whenever I've gotten in like a little fender bender. Right, right. Of course. You know? But in that, there is no... Do you have to stay so in it that there is no out? I think so. Can you let yourself drift in almost like a meditative state and just be like, hands... I don't think you can. I think if you drift, you're fucked. I mean, I think first of all... So how do you stop things... Physical requirements. Well then how do you stop things like, you know, guess who's hungry? Oh shit. You know what I mean? I think he does it so often that he knows how to get into that state. But you know, there's also like, look at that little thing. Go that back there. State of disbelief. Look at that little thing he's holding on with his left hand. What's to say that doesn't chip loose? What's to say? What's to say? I mean, some of those rocks... I mean, talk about manifesting that you do it. Talk about saying, guess, you know, it's already done. You'd have to say it's already done. I don't know what. I think you just got to go left foot, right foot, right hand, left hand. And then you also have done it many times with ropes. But also when you're on the ground, you're like, want to hang out? And he's like, no. Bro, that looks like 60 degrees. Yeah, that's a little more. That's insane. He's like basically hanging upside down, climbing so far above the fucking trees. On purpose. They're blurry. On purpose. On purpose. Like, it's Tuesday there. You know what I mean? Most people, you and me included, would be dead. We wouldn't be able to do what he's doing. I'd be dead of a heart attack from realizing I was going to try. And he's such a mellow guy too. That's what's really interesting. Yeah, like look at that smile. That's... It's like... He also just started recently getting injured. Right. I saw that thing. Yeah, in the movie. I tell you what though, I will read or watch anything about Everest or climbing or I don't know if there's something... Because I'm always like, well, I'm going to go for that metaphorically. You know? Metaphorically. Yeah, like I'm going to take that metaphorically. That energy and put it into the car. And put it into something else. Like, I don't know, pass those chips over here. Like the way I eat. I eat the way those climbers risk their lives. See that Sunday over there? I'm going to climb that thing. It's just knowing that someone like that is out there though, it changes what our expectations are. What do you think of as the boundaries of human performance and what someone's capable of doing? Well, it's certainly... It's certainly there's a weird epiphany when you're watching someone do that. Yeah. Because you're sort of like, I'm doing the exact opposite of this person that I'm watching. Yeah, you're just sitting there. Yeah, you're like... Not risking anything. Yeah, you're just sort of like, thank you for doing this for my pleasure. There's a moment of disconnect for me when I'm like, I'm going on a hike. I can't finish this movie anymore. I'm not supposed to finish this movie anymore. It's interesting because what he's doing is essentially a spectator sport, but there's no audience until after it's done. Right. So it ultimately for the climb must be singularly about you. I mean, it must be. I don't know how you include someone else during that thing. No. I think it's just all about the moment. I think he's just, like I said, I think he's thinking left foot, right foot, right hand, left hand, and you just keep going and you know the path. Well, then that would be akin to some of the greatest meditative minds that have ever existed. Yeah. Oh, it's got to be, yeah. Because it's one thing to meditate in position and kind of go deeply within and keep going into the depths, which are vast, right? But it's different if you said, now will you get up and climb this thing, please? There would be a certain amount of... No, no, I'm still meditating. I'm not going to do that. Right. Where you might be like, no, I'm doing this, so I don't have to do that. Right. To maintain that mindset through action, that's a different kind of meditation because the consequences are so grave.