Joe Rogan on Why You Need Hardship to Thrive

The J R o g n experience. They're like so many things in life. We figure out so late, if ever. You know, when we're kids, we look at adults, our parents, those in authority and they call, they got it figured out. You had a really good joke about this, about thinking the older you get, the more you understand life and how things are going on. But the older you get realized nobody knows what the fuck is going on and everyone's out here just winging it. Yeah. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I'm just kind of trying my best, but I'm like, oh, maybe I should look to my parents for advice. Like, geez, they're really just adult kids. Like they know what the fuck they're talking about. Yeah. The bit was, do you remember when you thought that grownups were real? They don't exist. Like I used to think that one day I'm going to be a grower. I was crying. I was young. I was so upset. One day I'm going to be a grownup and everything's going to make sense. And then one day you're at the supermarket and the guy goes, paper, plastic, sir. You look, sir, I'm a sir. Am I a grownup? Fuck, this is it. And then you realize no one knows any more than you about what this is all about. You might have more data in your head. You might have more experience. You might be a brain surgeon. You might know how to build rockets. You might be smarter than me, but you don't have any fucking idea what this is. No one does. You cannot. No. You can, but. Everything is there. I like to think there are really no facts. Everything is a theory because we could all be asleep in a dream right now or hooked up to a machine. Like nobody knows that for sure. So how can you possibly say anything is factual? You can say things are factual with the information that's in front of you, but that information might be bullshit. And 10 years from now, we might have a completely different perspective on things that we're doing now that we think are right. And like, this is the way life is. This is the way the world is. Like 10 years ago, people had a very different approach to things. What we can say is, as far as we know, this is the case. And this is what we know is repeatable. If you do this, if you put two bricks on top of two bricks, you have four bricks. We're pretty sure. But maybe not. But we might be in a dream. Yeah. Like we could all be wrong. And that's why I think it's so stupid to judge other people's beliefs, be like, oh, your way is the right way. You got it figured out. And everybody else is crazy, but you think it. I'm like, don't you think that they think the exact same thing you do? Well, there's a problem today. And there's a lot of people out there giving advice. And this is what's interesting. Sometimes advice, it resonates. And then you get older and wiser and you realize that advice is really fucking stupid. Because you have, it's, there's people that are giving advice and they're, they're, they're, they're, there's like a lot of value in motivating people, right? Like when someone's a like a legitimately motivational person, whether it's like Wim Hof, the Iceman, or someone who's like really done some things, there's something about them that that their inspiration is fuel. It's, it really does something to you. But then there's a lot of people out there that are just saying shit because they think it's going to be motivating to other people. And it sounds like horseshit. And it only tricks dummies. And that stuff is painfully prevalent. There's so much of it. There's so many people out there that are trying to offer advice and they're trying to motivate people. But then you go, Hey man, what have you experienced? They've had a placid dull life filled with non-accomplishments. Yeah. The biggest accomplishment is tricking people into thinking they're a good motivational speaker. Like the get rich quick things. Oh, there's so many of those. This is how they've gotten rich. Sure. Yeah. Dude, I was watching a documentary and one of those guys, one of these internet guys who rents houses and rents cars and tries to pretend he's this big baller and, and spends all this money. And, you know, and ran a bunch of scam dating sites and all these different things. And I'm like, wow, this is, this is, this pursuit is odd. It's a fucking odd thing. This pursuit of tricking people into thinking that you're more knowledgeable than you actually are. What resonates with people is like what you were talking about from the beginning of this podcast, when you're talking about your life and how you felt and your own real legitimate experiences and the feelings of inadequacy and then the finding the light at the end of the tunnel and all these different things that are just, you're, you're, you're relaying your, your life's lessons and experiences. Those are extremely valuable for people. Those are extremely valuable. But because people know they're extremely valuable, there's a lot of bullshitters out there that are trying to concoct these things and, and, and trick you. And like, this is how I got this mansion. You can get this mansion too. You can make, I'm going to show you here on a whiteboard. This is what you could do. And like, they're just horseshitting. Yeah. But there's money in that. And so there's a lot of them. There's like, they pop up all the time. I get emails from them. I get a fucking Instagram messages. I see them like, Hey, I want to come on your show, motivate people. I'm really about motivating people. Like, bro, you're 22. The fuck are you motivating? You ain't motivating shit. You know, go move to Nepal for a year. Yeah. And it's also such a, it's a tricky thing. Cause like, for even for myself, it's like, of course I want to motivate people. I want to help people. And yes, but you can start drifting into that. Now I'm a motivational speaker. Yes. Now I'm not being honest. Yeah. Communicating the full spectrum of the things that I'm dealing with and going through. And like, I'm only going to focus on these positive things. Like, Oh, just do this, this, and this. And you know, you're going to go the right way. And oftentimes, cause they don't have someone in their life, like the way you were describing Gina. Yeah. Someone is good. Hey, fuck face. You have to have someone in your life that's raw with you. That's real with you. And for me, it's my friends. It's definitely my wife. She doesn't bullshit me about anything. Yeah. Those, those people are giant in your life. You gotta have people that check you. Yeah. They have to know you too. They have to know you. You can't hide anything from them. We have, we have a lot of, a lot of us tend to have these, um, um, what would the word be? I don't know. These people in our lives that like, they're only there because you're doing something for them or this. Yeah. But those people aren't pushing you. They're, they're, they're, they're yes men. Yeah. They're parasites. They're parasites. They're not, it's not a real relationship. No. It's not a, that's not a relationship you're going to grow through. That's a, that's a relationship that's going to make you feel good. Yes. And, and, and in a lot of ways, and yeah, that's fun and comfortable. It's like, but if you, if that person can't, uh, get to the core of you and really be like, when you tell me something, I know it's truth because you have no other reason to say bullshit. Right. You don't owe me, you don't need anything from me. Yeah. Yeah. That's giant for people. You can't, like, this is one thing that I've seen many times with celebrities when they go off the rails and they, you know, they don't hang out with other people like them. So they don't have real friends. They have these employees and people, and it gets real sketchy and everyone that they talk to and interact with need something from them. And they assume this position of authority where no one can question them. Like no one can call bullshit. No one, like you gotta have peers. It's very important. If you don't have the respect and the friendship of your peers, like, man, you're a drift. Yeah. You're not tethered. You're out there in orbit, just fucking floating around. You're another dimension. Yeah. Not good. It's easy to get there too. Very easy. Yeah. Much easier than I do. Especially for successful people. People start kissing your ass. Yeah, I'm like, oh, this is nice. I don't need to deal with this bullshit. I'm gonna have these people around me that make me feel good and say yes to me and bring me all the things that I want and give me no stress. When I meet people like that, I go, you should do jiu-jitsu. Yeah. Go get choked. Because that's- I mean, that's such an important thing. Anything physical like that is extremely, I think, vital for everyone. I mean, particularly kids coming up, putting kids into athletics and martial arts and things like that. And if you don't like martial arts, look, you can't fake a marathon. 26.2 needs to be run. You need to go left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot till you hit the fucking finish line. Period. End of discussion. If you don't do that, you don't get there. You can't fake it. You can fake a lot of shit. There's a lot of shit you could fake, but moving your body, you can't really fake that. You gotta do it. 90 minute yoga classes, 90 fucking minutes. It's hot as shit, and you're in there sweating your balls off, and you gotta get to the end. You gotta get to the end. And it's a small thing. That's a small thing. Life is a big thing. But these small things that you can do, they'll help you understand what's necessary to get through the big things. And it's all macro and micro. It's all connected in some strange way.