Joe Rogan on Why He Really Does the Podcast

It's so weird how much we're... This is just modern survival. How much of our caveman shit is still there and how much of the survival stuff. I've been listening to a lot of therapy podcasts. There's this one called The Adult Chair. It's this woman, Michelle Chalfant. And she's just... It's all about dealing with your inner child and all of your instincts. She has the adolescent chair and the adult chair. And your adolescent chair is all of your ego and your emotions and your fight or flight. All of that, the stuff that you do, the procrastination, whatever is your problem. Why is that happening? There's something that's coming from either your child chair or something from your childhood or things like socially when you have social anxiety and panic attacks and stuff. So much of it could be just back from... In the days, if you were excommunicated from your tribe, you would die. If you were a part of the club, you would fucking die. So we haven't... We're still in that. That that's the reason why people are afraid of public speaking is that when you were speaking in front of a group, you were trying to save your life. You were trying to plead your case for the most part. Unless you were the leader of the tribe, most of the people were just trying to say, please, I didn't know and don't kill me. Is that how you feel walking around? Me? No, but some people... At the comedy store, people are like, merciful king. No. You know how I feel walking around? I feel like they don't... It's like they don't have anybody... Here's the way to put it. When you are listening to someone all the time and that person's in your ear, that person becomes a weird part of your life and then you meet them and you're like, whoa, this is crazy that you're right here. I've experienced that. When I first met Anthony Bourdain, I was weirded out. I was like, I can't believe you're right here. This is so weird. I've gotten used to that over time, but still it's strange when I meet famous people. It's even weirder when I meet famous people and they know me. I'm like, you know me? Okay. We become famous people together. Like, hi, famous person, let's hug it out. I know. I've seen that before. It's fucking strange. When two famous people just see... And then you're already in this weird club of famous people. It's strange. Automatically famous people club. It's not a normal state. People that enjoy the podcast, it becomes a part of their life and maybe it benefits them and maybe they start getting motivated and cleaning up their life and start being healthier and exercising and eating better. Then it becomes almost like a religion kind of thing, because it becomes the thing that you think of in terms of how to benefit your life, how to live in a positive way. You think about the things you learned on the podcast almost like you would look at a religious doctrine. You look at the teachings of Christ. You look at the teachings of Moses or you look at like, oh, what Rhonda Patrick said was this. Oh, well, you know what Graham Hancock was talking about. Your voice is like in their head. You're like a unhired coach to them. Well, there's a little bit of that. It's also represents my own quest to try to figure out my own life and to do it publicly and explain what I've learned and how I failed and what I've gotten better at. It helps other people when you hear that, because you go, oh, okay, I'm not alone. Because people think that if your life is in order right now, that it's always been like that. So I think it really helps people to hear, oh, I used to be a fucking loser. And I did. And I used to be scared to talk to bank tellers. And it was true. I used to be weirded out socially. I was very strange.